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The restricted free agent countdown: Kenny Agostino, Drew Shore accept qualifying offers

Four RFAs have accepted their qualifying offers, leaving six left to sign.

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The number of the Calgary Flames‘ restricted free agents continues to dwindle. First, Bill Arnold and Bryce Van Brabant accepted their qualifying offers; now, Kenny Agostino and Drew Shore have joined their ranks. This leaves just six RFAs left for the Flames to sign, half of which have elected to go to arbitration.

Because Lance Bouma, Paul Byron, and Josh Jooris elected for arbitration, they’ll have new contracts before the end of July. Turner Elson, Micheal Ferland, and David Wolf require less urgency.

In the meantime, four former college players officially have their new contracts. We have the specific details of Arnold and Van Brabant’s contracts, but not yet Agostino and Shore’s; however, we know that the minimum they could be offered was $829,500 for Agostino, and $945,000 for Shore (at least, potentially as of 2011, but there has been a new CBA since then).

Of the four who have accepted, perhaps the best bet to stay in the NHL is Shore. While Arnold, Agostino, and Van Brabant are all waiver-exempt, Shore will need to go through waivers in order to return to the AHL. In fact, that’s part of the reason the Florida Panthers traded him in the first place: he was approaching his waiver exemption limit, and the Panthers felt he couldn’t make their roster full time, so Calgary took a chance on him instead.

If Shore’s cap hit is only $945,000, and he remains on the Flames, then this helps towards Calgary’s impending cap crunch. They would have a little over $6 million remaining with four RFAs who could still potentially be on the Flames left to re-sign, which is extremely doable (and could perhaps leave room for someone else… say, a David Schlemko?).

UPDATE: According to GeneralFanager, both Agostino and Shore have accepted one-year deals. Agostino's cap hit is $735,000, and Shore's is $850,500. That's even less than expected (and… potentially possible?), so we'll keep an eye on this.

Either way, though, we know Shore is definitely coming cheap, and considering he has potential – not to mention is a right-handed shot, a rarity amongst the Flames' forward core – he'll be great value.

by Ari Yanover