Evan’s NHL Daily: Duchene Bought Out, Qualifying Offer Chaos, Compher to Detroit?

There was more than just one buyout in the NHL on Friday before the deadline. In fact, there was quite a few, but the biggest one of them all was former Avalanche forward Matt Duchene.

In addition to Duchene, there a whole lot of chaos with qualifying offers, as several good players did not get qualified by their teams, and could hit the open market on Saturday. That would change everything.

All that and more in this Saturday (Free Agency Day) edition of Evan’s Daily.

Colorado Hockey Now

No, I don’t think Matt Duchene is returning to the Avalanche. It’s still insane to me that Nashville just got rid of two of their top forwards and got nothing back. In fact, they’re paying them to go away.

Some final thoughts before free agency, including what Joe Sakic means when he says the team needs to add some grit.

Mikhail Gulyayev will probably still spend time in the MHL, but how much KHL time might he see next year?

There were no real surprises with the qualifying offers the Avalanche sent out. There were some definite surprises around the NHL, though.

The Avalanche did (officially) announce the times and dates for their development camp, although if you read here a week ago, we already knew the times.

July 3- on the ice from 8:15-12:30 PM

July 4 – on the ice from 8:15 am – 12:45 PM

July 5 – On the ice from 8:15 am – 11:00 AM

Burgundy vs. White 4v4 game – 5:25 PM

All these events take place at Family Sports.

NHL Free Agency Chatter

It sure doesn’t seem like J.T. Compher is coming back to Denver, so where could he end up? All along we’ve assumed Chicago, but Elliotte Friedman says that Detroit and Nashville are two teams linked to him. Nashville would be…confusing. Detroit just signed Andrew Copp last year, so not sure what the purpose of that would be.

Also, Ryan Reaves to Toronto? Okay then.

Pretty much every free agent the Bruins had is hitting the market. I touched on Connor Clifton almost two months ago, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him end up in Denver.

The San Jose Sharks let Noah Gregor walk, who may be an interesting pickup for another NHL team, but they did qualify Martin Kaut.

The Golden Knights locked down Adin Hill before he could hit the market.

Detroit did not qualify Klim Kostin, but it sounds like he may sign there anyway.

Here’s the full list of players who did not get qualified. It’s…long.

We have confirmed that we have captured all 113 players that did not receive Qualifying Offers by today's deadline on the site.

The full list of 2023 RFA's not qualified for your viewing, sorting, and filtering pleasure:https://t.co/t99DHb1Hp2

— PuckPedia (@PuckPedia) June 30, 2023

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