Hurricanes Qualify Boychuk, Shugg, Sutter, and Rissanen

The Carolina Hurricanes had until 5 p.m. on Monday afternoon to qualify their restricted free agents and chose to do so with Zach Boychuk, Justin Shugg, Brody Sutter, and Rasmus Rissanen.  Each of those players received qualifying offers and can return to the Carolina organization if they accept.

There were a group of RFA's who did not get offers, meaning that they will be unrestricted free agents come July 1.

Riley Nash, who led the team in scoring early in the season, did not get qualified. After a fast start, Nash was injured in December and had much lower performance after he returned.

The Canes could still sign Nash, or any of the others if they wanted to starting July 1.  They used a similar strategy with Jiri Tlusty a few years back.  They did not qualify Tlusty initially, but then signed him in early July.

The others who did not get qualified were Austin Levi, Jared Staal, and Beau Schmitz.

Also, Patrick Dwyer, Brett Bellemore, Ben Holmstrom, Jack Hillen, and Greg Nemisz will not be offered contracts and will hit free agency.

We will have more discussion about this later.

(As reported by Michael Smith)