The Dallas Stars have announced the team has made qualifying offers to restricted free agents Antoine Roussel, Cody Eakin, Brenden Dillon, Cameron Gaunce and Scott Glennie, with the Stars now retaining the rights to all five players moving forward.
The decision to keep Dillon, Eakin and Roussel were foregone conclusions, although it will be interesting to see what the final contracts agreed upon will be — especially for Dillon. All three will have major roles with the Stars for years to come and were integral to the team making the postseason this past year, and now the Stars can move forward into actually getting them signed.
There was some discussion over whether the Stars would extend an offer to Scott Glennie, but after another solid season in the AHL there is the feeling that he should be ready for compete for an NHL roster spot in the bottom six. While that’s not the ideal path for a top ten draft pick, just getting NHL time at all out of a pick can sometimes be considered a positive.
The Stars also announced they did not qualify five players, including Austin Smith, who will now become unrestricted free agents. The press release:
FRISCO, Texas – Dallas Stars General Manager Jim Nill announced today that the club has issued qualifying offers to the following players, thus retaining their negotiating rights:
PLAYER – POSITION
Brenden Dillon – D
Cody Eakin – C
Cameron Gaunce – D
Scott Glennie – C
Antoine Roussel – LW
The following players were not issued qualifying offers and will become unrestricted free agents on July 1:
PLAYER – POSITION
Ryan Button – D
Dustin Jeffrey – C
Tristan King – C
Hubert Labrie – D
Austin Smith – RW