Bruins issued qualifying offers to all but two

MONTREAL Boston Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli confirmed today that he tendered qualifying offers to all but two of his organizations restricted free agents.

At the NHL level, Phil Kessel, Byron Bitz and Matt Hunwick were qualified. At the AHL level, goaltender Kevin Regan was qualified. Prospect Carl Soderberg, who is still playing overseas, also falls into this group. The players not qualified, who will now become unrestricted free agents July 1, were forwards Wacey Rabbit and Ned Lukacevic. Yes, its a sad day for Bruins writers, who now never get to use the great name Wacey Rabbit in a headline or a funny lede going forward.

Qualifying offers allow a team to retain the right of first refusal on restricted free agents. They expire July 15.

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Since they said, "all but two", but didn't mention all the rest, I guess we can safely say that Johnny Boychuk, Martin St. Pierre and Ryan Stokes (also RFA's) also got qualifying offers.

What a shame for Wacey

I'll be as upset as everyone if this is true and I think we'll know for sure tomorrow when the NHL releases the official lists, but it appears the three above players may be unrestricted free agents after all. Which, would explain why they were not on the list. Espn.com and Tsn.com are both listing Boychuk as an UFA. ESPN is also listing St. Pierre and Stokes as unrestricted, but TSN has them both as restricted.

The list I have was issued by Boston, and I've been around to several sites today and they all list them as RFA's.. And, they were originally on that list from Boston. I've been to three sites today that list them as Restricted Free Agents and not UNresctricted Free Agents.. If there is an error, then many sites have an error, and Boston even issued an error. It DOES seem weird that they wouldn't mention them, though.

So.. from Sports Net, CA..

Martin St. Pierre Bruins C 500,000RFA
Ryan Stokes Bruins D 475,000 RFA
JohnnyBoychuk Bruins D 475,000 RFA

From Sports City.. the place I've gotten much all of my info during the years

Boston Bruins RFA's
Player Pos. Age 08-09 Salary Notes
Phil Kessel C 21 $850,000
Martins Karsums RW 23 $825,000
David Krejci C 23 $825,000 Re-signed with the Bruins. 3 years, $11.25 million.
Matt HunwickD 24 $775,000
Carl Soderberg C $725,000
Kevin Regan G 24 $720,000
Byron Bitz RW 24 $675,000
Ned Lukacevic LW $508,500 (not moved to UFA list yet)
Wacey Rabbit C $505,000 (not moved to UFA list yet)
Johnny Boychuk D 25$500,000
Martin St. Pierre C 25 $500,000
Ryan Stokes D $475,000

So, if they are NOT RFA's, why are they on those lists and more...?! I do think it's odd that they weren't mentioned. And if they suddenly are UFA's, I'd love to know why. I never did the "how long have they been playing, how old" to try and figure if they were UFA's or not.

Stay tuned, I guess...!

so does that mean boychuk shoudl be with the bruins ????