Canadiens: 11 days to decide the fate of 11 players
Today is June 18. The draft is eight days away, and the free-agent market opens in less than two weeks. Man, time sure flies when the Canadiens make it to the conference finals…
There’s one important date, however, that very few people are talking about right now across the NHL: June 29. That’s 11 days from now.
Teams have until 5:00 p.m. on June 29 to submit a qualifying offer to their restricted free agents (RFAs), regardless of whether they’re eligible for arbitration. If they fail to do so, they’ll lose their rights to those players.
The Canadiens have four players eligible for restricted free agency: Joe Veleno, Kirby Dach, Zackary Bolduc, and Arber Xhekaj.
Bolduc is not eligible for arbitration, while the other three will be able to ask a neutral arbitrator to determine the salary they deserve once they have received (but not signed) their qualifying offer.
Bolduc is expected to sign a bridge contract to prove he’ll have a place on the roster when the team is contending for the championship. He had a strong playoff run, but he was too often invisible during the regular season.
