Players eligible for restricted free agency don’t become restricted free agents by default. To make a player a restricted free agent, a team must extend a qualifying offer to him — a player who doesn’t receive one becomes an unrestricted free agent instead.
The qualifying offer, which is essentially just a one-year contract offer, varies in amount depending on a player’s salary in the most recent season of their expiring contract:
- $775,000 to $999,999: 105% of most recent salary up to $1,000,000.
- $1MM or more: the lesser of their most recent salary or 120% of cap hit.
In the increasingly rare instance where an RFA signed their most recent contract before July 2020 and earned $1MM or more in the last year of their deal, the qualifying offer is simply equal to their most recent salary.
Let’s take the top RFA on the board, Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard, as an example. While the cap hit of his expiring two-year deal is $3.9MM, he made $4.3MM in actual salary in 2024-25. However, his most recent salary is still less than 120% of his cap hit ($4.68MM), so his qualifying offer will be a one-year deal worth $4.3MM. That stipulation is why players signing an agreement with RFA expiry status will generally negotiate a base salary in the final year of the contract no higher than 120% of the cap hit, to prevent a salary reduction if they accept their qualifying offer. The two highest-salaried pending RFAs this year, defensemen Bowen Byram and K’Andre Miller, both took that route.
For players on expiring entry-level or two-way contracts, their qualifying offer is also a two-way deal. It’s important to note that “salary” as it relates to QOs is tied to a player’s base salary only, not their total guaranteed compensation, which includes salary plus signing bonuses. That’s why you’ll rarely see players opt to receive signing bonuses in the final year of a deal with RFA expiry status – while signing bonuses technically make a buyout less advantageous for the team and benefit the player, they also limit the floor of their earning potential on a qualifying offer.
They’re almost always unavoidable for players on expiring entry-level deals, though. Take Devils star Luke Hughes. He’ll make $2.775MM in total cash this season thanks to signing and performance bonuses, but his qualifying offer is just a two-way deal with a cap hit of $874,125 – 105% of his 2024-25 base salary of $832,500.
So while Noah Dobson has the highest cap hit among pending RFAs at $4MM, Miller, as mentioned earlier, actually has the highest qualifying offer this summer at his 2024-25 base salary of $4.646MM.
Qualifying offers are due by the later of June 25 or the Monday following the draft. Given how the league schedule has trended in recent years, it’s almost always the latter. That holds in 2025, when the qualifying offer deadline is again June 30, one day before free agency opens. They expire by July 15 if not extended in writing by the team; however, it’s not unusual to see players sign identical contracts to their QOs after that date. A team still holds a player’s signing rights even if the qualifying offer expires before an agreement is reached.
A player can also accept his qualifying offer if he chooses to do so. He then plays the following season on a one-year contract worth the amount of the QO, and, depending on their age or accrued NHL seasons, becomes an unrestricted free agent or repeats the process as an RFA. A player can go this route if he feels like the QO is the best offer he’ll receive, or if he’s one year away from being eligible for UFA status and wants to focus on testing that market.
Contract information courtesy of PuckPedia.
Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images.