Michael Smith

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The Carolina Hurricanes today extended qualifying offers to forwards Zach Boychuk Justin Shugg and Brody Sutter and defenseman Rasmus Rissanen , retaining their restricted free agent statuses.

All four of these players logged action in the NHL last season, with Shugg, Sutter and Rissanen each making their NHL debuts. Boychuk skated in 31 games with the Canes in 2014-15, posting three goals and three assists. Shugg led the Charlotte Checkers in goals (21), power-play goals (7) and points (43) last season.

Forwards Riley Nash and Jared Staal and defensemen Austin Levi and Beau Schmitz were not tendered qualifying offers and will become unrestricted free agents on Wednesday, July 1. The Canes could, of course, explore re-signing any one of these players once free agency opens.

The following players are also unrestricted free agents: forwards Patrick Dwyer, Ben Holmstrom and Greg Nemisz and defensemen Brett Bellemore and Jack Hillen.

The Canes have already re-signed a number of players. Goaltender Drew MacIntyre (one year) and forward Chris Terry (one year) were each locked in before hitting the open market. Additionally, defenseman Michal Jordan (one year) and forward Andrej Nestrasil (two years) were brought back into the fold within the last two weeks.

Keep tabs on all Hurricanes movement in the offseason with our player tracker, and snag a visual look at players under contract with the organization with our contract chart.