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By my count, there are really only about 60 or 70 unrestricted free agents worth looking at, especially if you limit your list to players who played at least 30 games last season and in at least 10 minutes a game. With an assist to Behind The Net and some of Gabe Desjardins's nifty advanced metrics, what follows is an evaluation of who's left, and how they can help a team.

First, a look at 42 UFA forwards and how they stacked up at even strength last year. The key figures to know here are QCMP, which measures quality of competition players face (difficult or easy minutes), and GF/60 and GA/60, which are the scoring rates, for and against, when certain players are on the ice.

I've ranked players according to how they fared in all three stats (click the title of this post to open in a full window to read every column if some are obscured in your browser):

In general terms, at even strength last season, the guys at the top of the list helped their teams (although some had help from their linemates), while the guys at the bottom weren't helping much at all. Another key stat to keep in mind, however, is Pt/60, which is points per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 hockey.

If you factor in his offensive production, Alex Tanguay is the class of the UFA forwards still, even coming off a down year in Montreal. Players in a more defensive role at even strength who did all right include Robert Lang, Manny Malhotra, P.J. Axelsson, Stephane Yelle, Mike Grier and Andy Hilbert (remember he was on the Islanders here).

Players in an offensive role who did all right include Miroslav Satan, Petr Sykora, Jason Williams, Alex Kovalev and Saku Koivu.

On the whole, though, there's not a lot to love there. A lot of the defensive specialists like Rob Niedermayer, Travis Moen, Stephane Veilleux, Mike Peca and Todd Marchant had tough years. And I wonder if guys like Radek Bonk and friends will even find NHL employment next season.

After the jump, a look at potential power play and penalty killing gems.

With the man advantage, only 20 of the above players logged significant minutes. Here they are, sorted by points per 60 minutes of 5-on-4 ice time:

About 4.50 and up are decent power play figures, so as you can see there aren't a lot of choices here in terms of players who play regularly with the man advantage. Lang, Kovalev, Kotalik, Koivu, Sundin, Tanguay and Sykora are okay bets to boost a second unit.

A few of the others have numbers pulled down by being on a bad PP team, but most should come with a buyer beware label. The 'Diff' figure at the far right is a look at how teams' power plays improved with these players on the ice, which doesn't speak well for many of the guys at the bottom of the list's contributions.

On the penalty kill, there are some better options. Same idea with the stats here, except I'm leaving out point production and going solely with how much better teams' 4-on-5 goals against averages were with these guys on the ice:

Those ones are pretty self-explanatory, I think. It's tough to measure penalty killing prowess on the basis of one year, but someone like Marchant obviously has a handle on the role. And ask any Rangers fan about Betts's contributions in the role.

The top all-around players, in terms of contributing everywhere, are Malhotra, Lang and Axelsson, while Lang, Sykora, Tanguay and Kovalev are the best best offensively. Defensive help could come from someone like McAmmond, Axelsson, Peltonen or even Taylor Pyatt, who quietly picked up some defensive duties and did well.