In a series of largely procedural moves that come as a surprise to absolutely no one, the Caps have extended qualifying offers to all of the team's NHL-level Restricted Free Agents: Eric Fehr, Boyd Gordon, Mike Green, Brooks Laich and Shaone Morrisonn. The team did not, however, tender offers to Stephen Werner or Jamie Hunt, who will now become unrestricted free agents (recall that last year the team qualified everyone except Jiri Novotny, Kris Beech and a bunch of farmhands).The qualified players can now accept their qualifying offers, negotiate other deals with the team or test the RFA waters and hope to get offers from other clubs.
[Thanks to Dick Dillman Award winner Paul Rovnak for passing along the news.]
Update: Tarik's got more on RFA process (key dates, who has arbitration rights, etc.), and Corey has a must-read analysis on Brooks Laich's situation. I've said it before here and elsewhere that re-signing Laich might become the toughest decision among these RFAs and Corey, being smart, seems to agree with me.
3 comments:
There goes my dream of having a childhood friend and former teammate in Squirts in the NHL. Best of luck Stephen Werner, no longer the next Jeff Halpern.
For some reason JP I don't share your concern about Laich. I think it's pretty open and shut the Caps will bring him back in the fold, just have to get the other bigger pieces (Green, starting goalie, goalie, Mo) in the puzzle first.
I mean Laich's coming to the fanfest in July, right? What's that say about the Caps specifically getting him (and him coming). Maybe he's just in town, but I don't see why he would happen to be around and no other players would at the same time.
@ Hooks: I'm not so concerned that he won't be back, I just think the two sides could be pretty far apart (in dollars and/or years, as Corey detailed beautifully) and if he doesn't sign an offer sheet with another team, they may stay that way.
On one hand, you have a guy who was mediocre (at best) at even strength and has had one good year.
On the other hand, his tears cure cancer.
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