Restricted Free Agents are due their Qualifying Offers on July 12, the day before free agency. It used to be common practice in the NHL for all RFAs to get qualified unless they were older confirmed AHLers that the team didn’t have a spot for. If a player isn’t qualified, they become a free agent at noon on free agent day, so it’s cutting the RFA loose and losing all signing rights to them. The only exception to this is if the team has elected arbitration in the first window, which closes today.
In recent seasons, because the salary cap failed to rise as expected, teams have made tough decisions on borderline NHL RFAs, particularly those whose QOs put them above what the team wanted to spend on the role the player filled.