With time running short, the Arizona Coyotes finally made some roster moves to attempt to develop their roster for next season.
Domingue has some security
First off was goalie Louis Domingue, who inked a two-year one-way contract worth $2.1 million according to spotrac.com.
Domingue had a reasonably good year last season with a 15-18-5 record and a 2.75 goals-against average, including a .912 save percentage.
He came to the rescue of the Coyotes when starter Mike Smith went down with a core muscle injury, sidelining him for most of the last half of the season.
Other player contract moves
In other moves the team issued qualifying offers to the following players: Forwards Tobias Rieder, Tyler Gaudet and Stefan Fournier, and defensemen Connor Murphy and Michael Stone.
The way qualifying offers work is as follows:
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-> The current team must extend a "qualifying offer" to a restricted free agent to retain negotiating rights to that player.
-> Players who earned less than $660,000 in the previous season must be offered 110 percent of last season's salary.
-> Players making up to $1 million must be offered 105 percent.
-> Players making over $1 million must be offered 100 percent.
-> If a qualifying offer is not made, the player becomes an unrestricted free agent.
-> If the player rejects a qualifying offer, he remains a restricted free agent.
So, using this formula, Rieder, and Gaudet must be offered at least $971,250 per year.
Fornier is due at least $660,000. Murphy should be offered at least $874,125, and Stone $1,450,000.
For regular roster players like Murphy, Rieder, and Stone it is more than likely they will receive multi-year contracts similar to what Domingue received. Gaudet and Fournier may very well play on the AHL Tucson Roadrunners team.
Other players who were not offered qualifying offers were: defensemen Kevin Connauton, Klas Dahlbeck and Jarred Tinordi, but GM Chayka said contract talks with those three players would continue.
“I’m confident that we’ll come to terms on all those players,” Chayka said. “It’s just a matter of time and working through the process.”
Doaner still needs a contract
Chayka is still in the negotiations process with captain Shane Doan, who is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent on Friday.
Chayka commented on Doan's signing progress to Coyotes' Dave Vest:
“There’s just a lot of balls in the air with our entire team,” Chayka said. “... Once we get a little more clarity with where everything fits, then it makes it a lot easier to get Shane in the right spot at the right time. He’s been very patient with us and I appreciate that from him. He’s been phenomenal throughout the entire process... It’s all positive and we’ll continue to work toward something and hopefully it’s sooner rather than later. That’s what I expect.”