The Montreal Canadiens could lose the services of Artturi Lehkonen
NHL teams have until 5pm tonight to submit qualifying offers to their upcoming restricted free agents (RFAs). Those who do not sign qualifying offers will join the unrestricted free agents this Wednesday. For the Habs, the player that intrigues us at the moment remains Artturi Lehkonen.
Just as an aside, here is how qualifying offers are calculated for players in this category: these offers are always for one year only and to calculate the salary attached to them, we multiply the amount equivalent to the base salary of the last season multiplied by 1, 1.05 or 1.1.
If we take the case of Lehkonen, he pocketed an average salary of $2.4 million, or $2.2 million without his $200,000 bonus. If Bergevin makes him a qualifying offer, it will be $2.2 million and "Lehko" will be entitled to arbitration, unless the two sides agree on a contract without fighting in front of an arbitrator, which is also possible.
But will Bergevin make a qualifying offer of $2.2 million to his Finnish left winger, who had 13 points including seven goals in 47 regular games last season in order to avoid chipping away at the relationship in front of an arbitrator? Note that during the playoffs, he became a top left winger on the Danault-Gallagher line. He concluded his playoff run with four points, including three goals, in 17 games.
In short, Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Ryan Poehling are also restricted free agents with the Montreal Canadiens. All of which we will be watching closely today.
