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They say patience is a virtue and nowhere is that more evident than in the upcoming NHL free-agent season, where the handful of players that will get to July 1 without signing new contracts, stand to make small fortunes, on the grounds of limited supply and overwhelming demand.

The salary cap bump — to $56.7 million — and the pressure on half-a-dozen NHL teams to make the playoffs next season without fail, means they are open for business and will do whatever they can to land the Marian Hossas and Brian Campbells, who are out there, ready to listen to offers.

It is another virtue — player loyalty — that created this situation in the first place. So many of the players who were in a position to go to unrestricted free agency this summer opted to stay with their respective NHL teams.

The poster boys for that were the Calgary Flames, who got the ball rolling last July already when they coaxed their team captain and most valuable player, Jarome Iginla to sign a five-year, $35 million extension, even before he had a chance to see how the Mike Keenan era might unfold. As an unrestricted free agent, Iginla might have set a record in the post-lockout NHL, where an individual player can now earn $11.34 million per season, or a maximum of one-fifth of the cap.

With all of his assets — charisma, leadership, toughness, production - Iginla would have broken the bank this summer, if he had been of a mind to test the free-agent waters. Instead, he signed a deal that amounted to a significant home-town discount for the Flames; Iginla didn't even ask for a raise, largely so the organization could keep other key elements of the team in the place and theoretically anyway, challenge for a championship.

By November, goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff joined Iginla on the free-agent sidelines, signing a six-year extension that will keep him in Calgary for the rest of his prime years as well. On Friday, four more players who could have been free within 72 hours, officially stayed put as well — Daymond Langkow, Craig Conroy, Eric Nystrom and goaltender Curtis McElhinney, who will likely back up Kiprusoff after Curtis Joseph had that job down the stretch. Langkow's signing to a four-year deal reportedly worth about $20 million took a 65-point centre off the market, one who would have been snapped up by any number of teams, including the Columbus Blue Jackets, had he made it to free agency.

It wasn't just Calgary, however, that succeeded in getting its own key free agents under contract in the past 12 months. If Joe Thornton, the league's MVP in 2006, hadn't signed a three-year extension with the San Jose Sharks last summer, he too could have been an unrestricted free agent next week, same as the Ottawa Senators did the same with Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley. It went that way throughout the league last year - and the signs are the trend will continue, what with Vincent Lecavalier closing in on a nine-year, $77 million extension that will keep him in Tampa for life and Henrik Zetterberg expected to sign again with the Detroit Red Wings in early July, a development that will keep the reigning Conn Smythe Trophy winner from headlining the free-agent class of 2009.

The idea that granting unrestricted free agency to players at the age of 25, a key concession in the last CBA, would result in a wholesale shuffle of players, all willing to sell themselves to the highest bidder, didn't materialize. The combination of security; a comfort level in their current surroundings; plus the understanding that the grass isn't always greener elsewhere (except in the pure dollar sense) convinced many of the NHL's top players to pass up free agency.

Of the more than 100 players who will test the market beginning Tuesday, the vast majority has some issue or other that might limit their appeal, if the free-agent crop were deeper. Of the ones that don't have a discernible flaw, only a handful qualify at the highest-end of the spectrum — Hossa up front, Campbell on the blue line - and thus will command eye-popping contracts, big numbers and long terms. Even the second-tier of players (Brian Rolston, Pavol Demitra, Kristian Huselius, Ryan Malone, Sean Avery up front, Wade Redden and Brooks Orpik on defence, Cristobal Huet and Jose Theodore in goal) should command big dollars, far in excess of what they would be worth in a broader market.

The only player who finished among the top 20 scorers last season to make it to July 1 (assuming the Montreal Canadiens don't coax him into signing an extension this weekend) will be Mats Sundin, the Leaf captain. For Sundin, the first issue to settle is whether he wants to play at all next season. Sundin doesn't appear in any rush to make that decision. Given the limited options available to teams trying to improve themselves via free agency, Sundin's hesitancy shouldn't affect his marketability if he does choose to play. Any number of teams — from the Leafs and Canadiens, to the Vancouver Canucks and Detroit Red Wings — would gladly give him the opportunity to play, especially if he were to do so, on a one-year contract, which is preferable to any team signing a player over the age of 35, because of the salary-cap implications. Even though the Rangers are knee-deep at centre, with Chris Drury and Scott Gomez there (and Washington trying to get them to take Michael Nylander back so they can sign Sergei Fedorov), the Rangers will make a pitch for Sundin too, especially if Jaromir Jagr opts to become the new marquee attraction of Russia's Continental League and joins Avangard Omsk.

It's also why Hossa represents the single most interesting free agent out there, after the Pittsburgh Penguins broke off negotiations with him last weekend (Hossa reportedly turned down a multi-year offer of $7 million per season). Hossa wants to earn more than that, but also play on a contender, meaning the Sharks, Red Wings and Rangers will lead the list of possible destinations for the Slovak winger. Presumably, the Boston Bruins will also make a competitive bid and play the familiarity card. Hossa knows the GM (Peter Chiarelli) and the captain (Zdeno Chara) from his Ottawa Senators' days and the leading scorer (Marc Savard) from his time with the Atlanta Thrashers. Do the 94-point Bruins represent a legitimate Stanley Cup threat now, or in the foreseeable future? And if they don't, but they decide to go to an $8.5 million average on say a six- or seven-year term, would that offer trump a smaller deal from a team such as the Sharks, who could promise Hossa the opportunity to play with Thornton on an offensively challenged team, where he'll get the chance to pile up the points? The Red Wings, meanwhile, have money to spend this summer because both Zetterberg and Johan Franzen will play out their final years on their current contracts for very modest sums ($2.65 million and $941,667 respectively), but be in line for big raises the following year. That's why Sundin, on a one-year deal, makes more sense than Hossa on a six-year deal, from a Red Wings' perspective. In the post-lockout era, Detroit's operating strategy has been to reward its own homegrown talent, and occasionally splurging on a necessary supplementary piece of the puzzle (such as Brian Rafalski last year, who replaced Mathieu Schneider as a top-four defenceman). They would also like Brad Stuart, a rental at last year's deadline, to re-up but there are persistent indications that Stuart wants to return to California, for family reasons, again.

The Ducks' biggest hole is the one they created last year, when they sent Andy McDonald to the St. Louis Blues for Doug Weight (and more importantly, salary-cap relief), so they could put Scott Niedermayer back on their roster. Weight was a poor fit in Anaheim and down the stretch, was even a healthy scratch; he won't return. Nor will Todd Bertuzzi, who general manager Brian Burke signed last year to a two-year, $8 million deal, nominally to replace Teemu Selanne, who was contemplating retirement. The Ducks put Bertuzzi on waivers, with a view to buying out the final year of his contract. That would make him an unrestricted free agent on Tuesday, same as Brendan Morrison and Markus Naslund, his long-time linemates with the Canucks. It wasn't so long ago that Morrison, Naslund and Bertuzzi was arguably the top line in the NHL. Maybe a team in need of a quick fix (Atlanta? Florida? Those wild and crazy guys in Tampa?) will sign them all at a bargain-basement price and challenge them to find their old form as a unit. Morrison's chances of re-signing in Vancouver were diminished when they claimed Kyle Wellwood off waivers from the Maple Leafs. With Henrik Sedin and Ryan Kesler ahead of him on the depth chart, it is unlikely that he will return to Vancouver. In some ways, Morrison might not be a bad fit in Anaheim, where they'll need a second-line centre; and if Selanne decides not to play, it wouldn't be uncharacteristic for Burke to make a pitch for Naslund as well. It would all depend upon the dollars, of course. The Ducks are not going to be a cap team and they need to set aside a big chunk of cash to get Corey Perry signed as a restricted free agent after July 1. In fact, Burke said as much Friday. After noting that "Todd Bertuzzi is a quality person who we believe can still play at the NHL level," Burke insisted his decision to buy him out was solely financial. "Unfortunately, we are handcuffed by our salary-cap situation." Burke added: "We thank him for his efforts and wish him the best of luck in the future." But is there a future for a 32-year-old grump, who carries so much personal baggage with them? It depends how desperate some teams will get when they strike out on their first choices.

In an unlikely way, perhaps the most interesting team to monitor in the days ahead may be the Minnesota Wild, who stand poised to lose both Rolston and Demitra as free agents, after it looked almost certainly as if they could get at least Rolston under contract. Rolston is one of the most accomplished two-way centres in the league, and scored 96 goals in three seasons with the Wild. If he goes and Demitra ends up in Vancouver, what are the implications for Marian Gaborik, their leading scorer last season (42 goals, 81 points), who is only a year away from unrestricted free agency? Gaborik, if he shows the requisite patience, could be next year's answer to Hossa, his fellow Slovak, an attractive pick-up at the trading deadline for any contender and then a going-into-his-prime free agent, who can score with the best of them, even in the Jacques Lemaire system.

Every year, the free-agent frenzy provides some cautionary tales. For every addition that seamlessly fits in (Rafalski in Detroit), there are any number who don't — from colossal busts such as Michal Handzus, Kyle Calder and Ladislav Nagy in Los Angeles to more modest failures such as Ryan Smyth in Colorado or Cory Sarich in Calgary, neither of whom produced the level of hockey that their respective salary-cap charges (of $6.25 million and $3.6 million respectively) would warrant. As for last summer's big three, (of Chris Drury, Scott Gomez and Daniel Briere, two of whom ended up with the Rangers, the other with the Philadelphia Flyers) reviews were decidedly mixed. All three represented upgrades on existing talent, but Drury and Gomez — two proven playoff performers — didn't get the Rangers any closer to the Stanley Cup than Nylander did the year before. And Briere, who was exceptional for most of the playoffs, heard boos at times this season in Philadelphia, as he couldn't quite meet the scoring standard that he achieved the previous year with the Buffalo Sabres (a 23-point year over year decline, from 95 to 72). As for Anaheim, which committed $10.6 million total to sign Mathieu Schneider and Bertuzzi, they didn't get nearly enough bang from their free-agent buck as well for either player as well. Bertuzzi is going and Schneider could be on the move as well, to get an upgrade up front.

Even knowing the history of free agency — more bust than boom - is not going to dissuade some teams from opening their wallets on Tuesday, however. After all, there is one single truth that applies to NHL teams, pre and post-lockout, as expressed by that old philosopher/left winger, George Santayana: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.