The Carolina Hurricanes on Monday extended qualifying offers to seven players before the 5:00 p.m. deadline, and announced that ten other pending free agents did not receive offers and will become unrestricted free agents at the end of the league year on Friday at noon.
A qualifying offer is a one-year contract offer at a salary specified by the CBA based on the player’s previous-year salary. Qualifying offers are not binding contracts unless the player accepts the offer. Extending a qualifying offer allows a team to retain restricted free agent rights on a player, and not doing so results in the player becoming an unrestricted free agent.