Without exception, the Pittsburgh Penguins qualified their restricted free agents on Friday, at least the ones still with the team.

And by doing so, the Penguins keep their rights or receive compensation if another team signs them away with an offer sheet, though the latter scenario seems quite unlikely given the Penguins’ nearly $38 million of salary cap space.

Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas confirmed the team made qualifying offers to RFAs Egor Chinakhov, Arturs Silovs, the newly acquired Hendrix Lapierre, Ville Koivunen, Alex Alexeyev, and Joel Blomqvist.

The RFA the Penguins did not tender–because they didn’t need to–was Vasily Ponomarev, who left the organization last summer to play in the KHL. The Penguins retain his rights because he is playing overseas.

According to PuckPedia.com, the minimum qualifying offers:

Chinakhov: $2.1 million.

Silovs: $850,000.

Lapierre: $892,500.

Koivunen: $850,000.

Alexeyev: $850,000.

Blomqvist: $874,125.

Chinakhov, 25, was not due a raise to keep his rights. His $2.1 million salary meant the Penguins needed only to offer him the lesser of 100% of last year’s salary or 120% of his cap hit. As both numbers were the same, the offer needed to be only $2.1 million. Of course, after scoring 18 goals with 18 assists in just 41 games after being acquired from the Columbus Blue Jackets, Chinakhov is in line for a healthy raise on a bridge contract or longer-term deal.

Unsurprisingly, the Penguins’ key contributors project to much larger salaries. According to AFP Analytics, Chinakhov projects to $3.865 million on a one-year deal or $5.597 million on a four-year contract. AFP projects Silovs to sign for one-year at $1.8 million.

Most of the players are also arbitration-eligible, and the lone exception according to PuckPedia is the 23-year-old Koivunen. The deadline for players to file for arbitration is July 5, at 5 p.m. Teams can also take players to arbitration (maximum two cases per year), and the window to do so is July 5 after 5 p.m. until July 6 at 5 p.m.

The arbitrator can only award a one or two-year contract, but the party that did not elect the arbitration selects the term. Players who are only one year away from being an unrestricted free agent may only be awarded a one-year contract.

Tags: arturs silovs Egor Chinakhov Penguins Free Agents penguins RFAs Pittsburgh Penguins

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