In a series of largely procedural moves that come as a surprise to absolutely no one, the Caps have extended qualifying offers to all of the team's NHL-level Restricted Free Agents: Eric Fehr, Boyd Gordon, Mike Green, Brooks Laich and Shaone Morrisonn. The team did not, however, tender offers to Stephen Werner or Jamie Hunt, who will now become unrestricted free agents (recall that last year the team qualified everyone except Jiri Novotny, Kris Beech and a bunch of farmhands).The qualified players can now accept their qualifying offers, negotiate other deals with the team or test the RFA waters and hope to get offers from other clubs.
[Thanks to Dick Dillman Award winner Paul Rovnak for passing along the news.]
Update: Tarik's got more on RFA process (key dates, who has arbitration rights, etc.), and Corey has a must-read analysis on Brooks Laich's situation. I've said it before here and elsewhere that re-signing Laich might become the toughest decision among these RFAs and Corey, being smart, seems to agree with me.