What Will Flyers Do With RFA?

Which restricted free agents will receive qualifying offers today? Photo: Nina Weiss/Highland Park Hockey

Flyers have qualified all of their pending RFAs except Pettersson

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Written by: Tony Androckitis - Twitter/Facebook

A source close to the situation has informed Highland Park Hockey (and soon to be Inside AHL Hockey!) that the Philadelphia Flyers have reached out to restricted free agent forward Cole Bardreau, expressing interest in retaining his services for the 2017-18 season. Bardreau is reportedly already in Voorhees, New Jersey at the Flyers' training facility.

Expect Bardreau and several other of the Flyers' restricted free agents to be tendered qualifying offers this afternoon. (EDIT: The Flyers announced all of the teams' pending RFAs received qualifying offers besides defenseman Jesper Pettersson).

UPDATE: Alex Lyon received his qualifying offer from the Flyers last week according to his agent, confirming Dave Isaac's report earlier this afternoon.

Lyon suffered a sprained MCL during the first round of the Lehigh Valley Phantoms' playoff series against Hershey, but according to his agent Lyon has fully recovered and it hasn't affected his regular off-season plans.

"He is feeling great, training and preparing for the season."

Monday marks the deadline for teams to submit qualifying offers to retain the services of their restricted free agents (RFA).

A qualifying offer is a one-year agreement with an RFA that represents a raise in salary from the previous year, with the percentage increased based on what the players' salary was last season.

Better explained by CapFriendly.com, the qualifying offer is calculated from the players base salary (NHL salary minus signing bonus), and at minimum must meet the seasons minimum salary requirements:

• 110% of the base salary if the base salary is less than or equal to $660,000 

• 105% of the base salary if the base salary is greater than $660,000 or less than $1,000,000. However, this qualifying offer cannot exceed $1,000,000. 

• 100% of the base salary if the base salary is equal to or greater than $1,000,000.

Below are the NHL cap hits that the Flyers must qualify their RFAs with:

Cole Bardreau: $727,125
Scott Laughton: $874,125
Taylor Leier: $806,558
Alex Lyon: $971,250
Roman Lyubimov: $971,250
Anthony Stolarz: $761,250
Mike Vecchione: $971,250

It's a safe bet at this point that the Flyers won't offer a qualifying offer to forward Roman Lyubimov or defenseman Jesper Pettersson. Neither appear to be in the organization's plans moving forward, and Pettersson has already signed a contract overseas to play in his native Sweden - even going as far as to thank the Flyers organization for the past three years on his social media accounts (i.e. Instagram etc.)

Another thing to keep in mind is that forwards Scott Laughton and Taylor Leier will no longer be waiver exempt in the 2017-18 season. All other RFAs in the list above can be reassigned to Lehigh Valley (AHL) without going through waivers and allowing other teams a chance to claim them.