On the eve of free agency, there was a 4:00 p.m. deadline for teams to tend qualifying offers to restricted free agents as part of the process of retaining those players.
That deadline has now passed and a pair of the Blackhawks restricted free agents have reportedly received those qualifying offers, meaning that Chicago retains exclusive rights to those players once free agency opens on Monday.
Ben Pope of the Sun-Times has the details in the tweet below:
The decision now facing Phillips and Crevier is to accept those qualifying offers or negotiate a new contract with the team.
Pope speculated that there was a possibility Joey Anderson finds his way back to Chicago at some point, though:
Not much in the way of surprises on these reports, though. Phillips is turns 23 in September and Crevier did so in May, so they remain on the younger side of that group, even if their places on the organizational depth chart with the selection of defenseman Artyom Levshunov at No. 2 in the 2024 NHL Draft. And even if they can’t carve spots out in Chicago, ample ice time should remain available to each with the Rockford IceHogs.
As for the rest: Jaxson Stauber also seemed to be lower on the list of priorities in net with Adam Gajan and Drew Commesso working their way towards possible NHL futures. Filip Roos and Michal Teply were AHL fixtures who didn’t seem to have any short or long-term hopes of making the Chicago lineup.
And the remaining trio of forwards — Taylor Raddysh, MacKenzie Entwistle and Reese Johnson — were all part of the plethora of skaters likely auditioning for fourth-line roles with only so many available to be claimed. It’s a bit of a tighter numbers game now, and none of those players were contributing enough that was impossible to have replaced by someone younger or cheaper or better — or perhaps all three.