Jack Roslovic has reached the part of free agency he has been trying to get to for years: the chance to turn another short-term deal into a real commitment. After back-to-back one-year prove-it contracts, the 29-year-old forward is entering the market with the kind of production that can finally push him toward a multi-year agreement.
That is why his name is being searched now. Roslovic just finished a season in which he played 69 games and scored 21 goals with 15 assists, numbers that keep him in the conversation as a useful middle-six option and, at times, a top-six fill-in. He also had a productive 2024-25 season in Carolina, when he scored 22 goals and totaled 39 points in 81 games, and that back-to-back offense is the strongest case for why his next deal could be bigger than the last two.
The financial case is not hard to make. Roslovic made $14.7MM over the past five seasons, according to PuckPedia, and he already settled for a one-year deal with the Edmonton Oilers in October after not landing a long-term contract he liked the summer before. Josh Cybulski put it plainly: if any player has been forced to earn a multi-year contract, it is Roslovic. The argument behind that view is simple. He has repeatedly delivered enough offense to matter, but not enough security to stop the cycle of short deals.
That cycle is the part that still hangs over him. Roslovic has bounced around to four teams in four seasons, even while putting together multiple 20-plus-goal seasons and showing the speed and puck handling that teams want down the middle of a lineup. The problem has never been whether he can help; it has been whether one of those teams will finally treat him like someone worth keeping. Instead, he has kept taking one-year contracts and betting on himself again the next summer.
Now the market is giving him a better opening. The cap environment has changed enough that giving Roslovic $4MM or more annually is less of a burden than it would have been a few years ago, and a three- or four-year deal would carry him through the rest of his prime seasons. That is the range that makes sense if a team believes the scoring is real and the fit is stable.
Roslovic may not get the long-term home he has been chasing on the first day of free agency, but the structure of the market says he is closer than he has ever been. The next contract decision should show whether teams view him as another short-term answer or finally as a player worth four years.
