We posted during the holidays the list of the 200-plus players who would have been unrestricted free agents in a normal season under the salary-capped environment. In the uncapped year, the minimum years of service to qualify for unrestricted free agency moves from four years to six.
The player also must have completed the terms of his contract. If, for example, a player drafted in 2006 signed a five-year rookie deal, that player is neither restricted nor unrestricted -- he’s still committed for one more year to his current team.
Here’s the full list of players whose rights will be retained by their current teams via application of one of the various levels of restricted free agency tenders.
Presumably, most of them have realized by now that they won’t be hitting the market in March, unless of course their current teams decide not to extend to them a one-year tender offer.