Rangers Qualify Five RFAs Ahead of Deadline, Let Brisson, Boyko, and Ollas Walk

Ahead of the 5 p.m. ET deadline to extend qualifying offers to restricted free agents, the New York Rangers have given five of their nine pending RFA's their qualifying offer.

The Pavel Dorofeyev piece of this may just be a formality, as it has been reported that he has agreed to a seven-year extension with an AAV of $11 million. The Rangers have not yet made an official announcement of the signing, which would indicate the paperwork of the signing has not yet been officially and fully processed.

As for the rest of the RFAs, it doesn't come as much of a surprise that Braden Schneider, Scott Morrow, Vincent Iorio, and William Trudeau have been given theirs. While Schneider's name is floating around in various trade rumors, the Rangers still need to give him that qualifying offer to retain his rights until a trade takes place, if it even does. Both Morrow and Iorio played in games for the Rangers last season ,and while Iorio was just a wavier claim, he did look good in a small sample size. That's not to mention if Schneider and even Will Borgen do end up being traded, you're going to need help on the right side.

Lastly, Trudeau was just acquired towards the end of last week in the Brett Berard deal. While Berard himself was an RFA, that's not a trade they make unless they have interest in a guy like Trudeau. All of the qualifying offers, save for Schneider's come in under $1 million. Schneider's qualifying offer is $2.64 million.

As for the pending RFAs that did not receive QO's, the only real surprise is Brendan Brisson. The Rangers acquired Brisson as part of the Reilly Smith trade two trade deadlines ago, and he finally got his chance with the Rangers this season. While he looked fine in those three games and has been a solid player for Hartford, a path forward for him the NHL was never promised. The Rangers have several NCAA and CHL graduates who will be ready for full time jobs with the Wolf Pack this season, making Brisson expendable. Brisson finishes his Wolf Pack tenure with 21 goals and 22 assists in 82 games split across two seasons.

As for one of the newer Rangers in Massimo Rizzo, it has already been reported that the Rangers were not going to qualify him. I go into this in a story that will drop tomorrow morning, but the deal in which he was acquired was really more about the draft capital side of it.

Lastly, the two extremely tall goaltenders in Talyn Boyko and Hugo Ollas have been fringe AHL/ECHL players ever since they were eligible to play professionally in North America. I've made mention in the past that the Callum Tung signing (and to a lesser extent, Spencer Martin) really indicated that the Rangers did not see much of a future for them within the organization. Boyko was on loan in Europe for parts of this season and Ollas has since signed overseas.