Breaking news in the form of a Tweet from Nick Kypreos indicates that the Nashville Predators may have missed the Monday deadline in making qualifying offers to their seven restricted free agents (Shea Weber was not included).The NHLPA allegedly is investigating the situation.
The Tweet read @RealKyper Big #NHL news as some question #Predators missing qualifying offers on RFA's O'Reilly, Spaling, Halischuk and Kostitsyn. Stay tuned...
The seven players involved are Cal O'reilly, Sergei Kostitsyn, Matt Halischuk, Nick Spaling, Chris Mueller, Linus Klasen, and Andreas Thuresson. Klassen and Thuresson appear to be headed to Europe to play but the Predators do indeed want to retain the services of the other five.
Josh Cooper reports from Development Camp that the Predators indicate that the deadline was met and that "David Poile does not have the disposition of someone who is stressed by this possible issue."
Update: Josh Cooper adds a statement from Bill Daly indicating that there are no known issues. The NHLPA has yet to respond exonerating the Predators.
If this story plays out as true, it would be similar to what happened to the Chicago Blackhawks in 2009 when they failed to place a physical copy of the contracts in the players hands by the 5 p.m. deadline and were forced to sign the players quickly before the July 1 free agency period.
The report is difficult to believe as it would be the rare exception for the Predators' brass that has never had any similar situations arise in the 13-year franchise history. The Preds, who work on a tight budget, might not be able to retain all seven if the pot has to be sweetened quickly before free agency begins on Friday.
Sam Page at OnTheForecheck has more detail on the breaking story.
More Later...
Buddy Oakes for PredsOntheGlass
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
You have to think that this may have done intentionally... I really can't see the Predators being procrastinators... I hope it works out in the end
Post a Comment