The Hurricanes extended qualifying offers to four players today, all of whom played for the Checkers at some point last season.
Zach Boychuk, Justin Shugg, Brody Sutter and Rasmus Rissanen were all qualified, keeping their status as restricted free agents.
Shugg enjoyed a career year last season, leading the Checkers in scoring with 43 points (21g, 22a), while Boychuk and Sutter chipped in 24 and 25 points, respectively, in shortened seasons. All three forwards logged NHL games in 2014-15 as well. Boychuk, the Checkers' all-time goals leader, matched his career-high with 31 games in the NHL before being assigned to Charlotte in January and finishing his season in the AHL. Sutter and Shugg each made their NHL debuts, with the former appearing in four games and the latter in three.
In his fourth season with the organization, Rissanen earned his first NHL call up, playing six games with Carolina before an injury put an end to his season.
Aside from those four, there were three Checkers' players that were not given qualifying offers. Jared Staal, Austin Levi and Beau Schmitz will all become unrestricted free agents on July 1.
Schmitz and Levi have spent much of their careers bouncing back and forth between the ECHL and AHL, though Schmitz was with the Checkers for the entire 2014-15 season. Staal has logged 227 games in a Checkers' sweater, making him the seventh-longest tenured player in the franchise's five-year AHL history.
Although they were not qualified, the Hurricanes could still pursue signing those three once the free agency period begins.
