Toronto Rock President, Owner & GM Jamie Dawick has announced that the Rock has matched the contract offer sheet tendered by the Rochester Knighthawks to restricted free agent Garrett Billings. The contract is a 2-year deal that covers the 2015 & 2016 seasons.
Billings was injured in April of 2014 in a game against the Vancouver Stealth, tearing his ACL, which required season ending surgery. He was without a contract to begin training camp and was moved to the Protected Player List while recovering from the previously sustained injury and has not been with the team this season.
Rochester filed their offer sheet with the NLL on Friday night, leaving the Rock 72 hours to match the offer. That window would have expired at 11:56pm on Monday night had the Rock not matched the contract offer and Billings would have become a Knighthawk with no compensation due to Toronto.
The NLL trade deadline is Tuesday afternoon at 3pm ET. Teams then have until Thursday at 12noon ET to finalize their roster. Following Thursday’s deadline, only internal roster transactions are permitted and no free agents may be signed for the remainder of the 2015 season.
The Rock also shuffled the roster to make room for defender Bill Hostrawser who was eligible to return to the Active Roster after serving the second game of his two-game suspension on Saturday night. Mark White was released from the Active Roster and placed on the Practice Roster to free up an Active Roster spot for Hostrawser.
