The Check Is In The Mail...

...along with the RFA Qualifying Offers.

In case you missed it over the not so eventful July 4th weekend, the Chicago Blackhawks front office spent most of the holiday wiping a significant amount of egg off their collective faces, as well as praying to the hockey gods that their snafu did not cost them about 1/3 of their roster.

After making quite a splash in the free agent market - signing the likes of Marion Hossa, John Madden, and Tomas Kopecky - the Blackhawks added to a young and incredibly talented core to emerge as an early favorite from the West for a Stanley Cup run (this after making it all the way to the Western Conference Finals this past season).

Well the glow was diminished a little bit when TSN reported on Friday that it seemed that there had been some sort of mix up in the mail room that resulted in the Hawks 6 RFAs not receiving their qualifying offers from the team by the July 1st deadline. It seems that the NHL offices and NHLPA received the relevant paperwork on time, but neither the players nor their agents had yet to receive anything.

The players involved were: Kris Versteeg, Cam Barker, Ben Eager, Colin Fraser, Aaron Johnson and Troy Brouwer. Versteeg and Barker are probably the most valuable assets on this list, but all 6 are contributers to the Blackhawks.

The Blackhawks countered that the offer had been "postmarked" (I suppose we've all used that one a time or two) by June 29th, and that perhaps the Canada Day holiday (July 1st) had interfered with the players/agents receiving their offers.

An innocent blunder? Perhaps. But the trick is, that the CBA states that if RFAs do not receive qualifying offers by the July 1st deadline, they in effect become UFAs and are free to negotiate/sign with any team on the open market. It also states (as common sense would seem to support) that U.S. and/or Canadian Mail should not be relied upon for the delivery of said paperwork, preferring that teams use express courier or fax, wherein delivery and receipt can be verified. Duh.

For the record, such an event is not without precedent as the NJ Devils committed just such an error in 1999/2000 in regards to the RFA offer sheets for John Madden (irony, anyone?) and Brain Rafalski. Both were declared free agents and ended up resigning with the Devils, but at a price significantly higher than they would have gotten under their original offer sheets. And this was pre-salary cap, so the Devils could spend freely to resign them (to the tune of $18 million).

The NHL launched an official investigation on Saturday, and then announced on Sunday that, as far as they are concerned, all is well and there will be no punishment or reprimand from the league. The ball is now in the court of the NHLPA. Few in the hockey world expect the Hawks to get hammered on this, but obviously it is not without precedent.

Earlier today their were reports that Eager, Brouwer and Fraser had already signed their offer sheets and would be back with the Hawks next season. Still no word on Versteeg or Barker, who by the way would probably be most likely to benefit from the open market. Nor from the NHLPA as to whether they will file any grievances on behalf of any of the players.

Sure, it's probably all mountains being made out of mole-hills, but it sure made for some interesting blog fodder on an otherwise slow news weekend.

Check out some of the schadenfreude here (the comments sections are particularly entertaining):

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Tom Benjamin


-m