The NHL’s 32 teams must submit contractual qualifying offers to their restricted free agents by 5 PM today in order to retain those players’ rights.
The players have every right to reject those QO’s and negotiate a higher salary, but no QO equals unrestricted free agency looming tomorrow at 12 PM EDT.
According to PuckPedia, which is going to be there for us after CapFriendly shuts down (and we should all thank the late Matthew Wuest for giving up CapFriendly), Detroit has 13 roster players signed, and approximately $31.87 million in salary cap space as of today.
The Wings’ restricted free agents include Lucas Raymond, Moritz Seider, Joe Veleno and Jonatan Berggren…
And if I were to play devil’s advocate, I’d suggest that the Wings may very well let Veleno and/or Berggren walk. Veleno’s $825,000 salary is far from a millstone, and the same is true for Berggren’s $925,000, two-way deal…
But Veleno’s 24, and Berggren 23, and we heard rumblings that Berggren would be traded this past season.
At this point, with Marco Kasper, Nate Danielson, Carter Mazur and Elmer Soderblom knocking on the door, would you try to re-sign and/or trade Veleno and “Jonny Burgers,” or would you let them walk?
