Rangers Extend Qualifying Offers to Five of Eight Remaining RFA's
These qualifying offer moves were made today in advance of the official opening of NHL free agency on July 1.
With the official start of free agency set to kick off tomorrow, July 1 at noon E.T., the New York Rangers announced that they have extended qualifying offers to all but three of their pending RFA's.
Talyn Boyko, Brendan Brisson, Will Cuylle, Dylan Garand, and K'Andre Miller all received qualifying offers, while Zac Jones, Arthur Kaliyev and Lucas Edmonds were not qualified. Additionally, Jake Leschyshyn, who was originally listed as a pending RFA, was actually a Group-6 UFA and will, too, hit the open market.
#NYR have extended qualifying offers to RFAs Talyn Boyko, Brendan Brisson, Will Cuylle, Dylan Garand. and K’Andre Miller.
— Vince Z. Mercogliano (@vzmercogliano) June 30, 2025
Lucas Edmonds, Zac Jones, Arthur Kaliyev and Jake Leschyshyn were not qualified.
There are not a ton of surprises here, as I had expected those four to move on when previewing the Rangers' group of RFA's this offseason. While Zac Jones may still have plenty of untapped potential, it became clear he wasn't going to get the opportunity in New York and that both parties were ready to move on. Arthur Kaliyev could have been a nice piece to hold on to but between injuries and the Rangers having a surplus of wingers, moving on makes sense for both sides.
The Rangers will head into free agency tomorrow with roughly $13-15 million in cap space. PuckPedia has them listed at just over $13 million but as Vince Mercogliano of Lohud.com points out, the Rangers could have more depending on who makes the opening night roster.
One thing I mentioned in the story and will reemphasize here is that the #NYR have slightly more cap space than is generally perceived.@PuckPedia (which is an awesome resource) has them listed with $12.2M in available space, but that's with a handful of players who aren't locks… https://t.co/9u2aaJKOEX
— Vince Z. Mercogliano (@vzmercogliano) June 30, 2025
With a ton of the big name free agents coming off the board within the last hour (Brad Marchand, Aaron Ekblad, and Ivan Provorov, just to name a few) Chris Drury will face a big challenge as the market officially opens tomorrow. How will he look to improve this team with limited cap space and extremely slim pickings? We should finally get our answer soon enough and we'll have you covered the whole way through!
