Qualifying Offer Day

So I didn't get my shit together to post my "here's a look at the roster right now" post or my "here's why we bought out Brad Richards" post, whatever, it's 2014, you all know how to use CapGeek. This summer, we are liable to see the Rangers make a bunch of moves we don't necessarily like. Some of them, like not re-signing Brian Boyle, will be the right move even though we don't like them. Some, like, not re-signing Dominic Moore, will be incomprehensibly bad ideas. But with the 2014-'15 season set to start tomorrow with the annual Free Agent Frenzy tradition of "listen to Canadian radio at the office instead of doing work all day," teams have until the end of today (5:00 PM Eastern) to qualify any restricted free agents on their roster.

As a reminder, a player with insufficient NHL experience whose contract is ending does not enter boring, normal free agency (in which he can sign with any team with no restrictions), he enters restricted free agency: his current team has the right to try to sign him to an extension first. The nature of that restriction is: based on the player's current salary, a minimum "qualifying offer" is calculated. Before the following season starts, the team has the right to "qualify" the player by offering him a contract at the value of that qualifying offer. If the team does so, regardless of whether or not the player accepts the offer, no other team may offer the player a contract when the following season begins.

Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean the player must accept the contract. If he has enough NHL experience, he qualifies for arbitration, which means that he (or, in rare cases, the team) can appeal to a neutral board that the qualifying offer is unjust. The board can then assign a new, "fair" contract value, which essentially then becomes the new "qualifying offer." Or, a thing that basically never happens can happen, and another team can submit an "offer sheet" to the player: a contract they'd be willing to pay, which the original team has first right to match, but if they don't, the player goes to the new team, which then owes the old team draft picks. Don't worry about this: GMs never do it for some reason.

If a team does not make a restricted free agent a qualifying offer before the start of the following season (July 1), or if the team at any point withdraws the offer (like if an arbitrator raises it), the player becomes an unrestricted free agent (and can sign freely with anyone). So, the first 2014-'15 decisions have to be in by the end of the day today: any qualifying offers must be made for our restricted free agents, before they become unrestricted (and probably go sign elsewhere for more). Here's who's on the table, listed along with their qualifying offers (not including the 7 current AHL players in our system who are restricted free agents):

Forwards (3): Derick Brassard ($3.7m), Mats Zuccarello ($1.15m), Chris Kreider ($850,000)

Defensemen (2): Justin Falk ($1,023,750), John Moore ($850,500)

Zuccarello, Brassard, and Falk all qualify for arbitration, while Kreider and Moore don't. Conventional wisdom, of course, is that despite their restriction, both Zuccarello and Kreider will be seeing decent raises (even though we could theoretically force Kreider's hand at the $850,000 level), so that will certainly start with them getting qualifying offers today. I would expect that Falk will not get one and will thus be free to walk (skate?) to another team. I'm guessing we will offer qualifying offers but not raises to Brassard and Moore? Hard to say.

So, by 5:00 PM Eastern today, we'll find out which of those 5 players received qualifying offers from the Rangers. Then, tomorrow, Free Agent Frenzy!