The Calgary Roughnecks and Georgia Swarm were active yesterday before the deadline to qualify restricted free agents. The Roughnecks qualified all of their potential RFAs, while the Swarm did for the majority.
Other teams qualified sparingly. The Saskatchewan Rush qualified Zack Greer and the Vancouver Stealth did it for Rhys Duch, both projected to be top restricted free agents on the market.
Calgary extended qualified offers for their RFAs, which included top names such as Curtis Dickson, Shawn Evans, Jon Harnett, and Dan MacRae. Goalie Frankie Scigliano was set to be an RFA but signed a three year deal earlier last month. Evans is a candidate for the NLL MVP award while Dickson scored a career high 93 points this season.
Georgia was able to retain Kiel Matisz, Mike Grimes, Shayne Jackson, Joel White, and Jordan MacIntosh. Grimes held out all of last season after being acquired from the Vancouver Stealth. Jackson and Matisz experienced break out seasons while MacIntosh is a former transition player of the year. White was acquired in a trade from New England in exchange for Andrew Suitor at the NLL trade deadline.
Georgia did not qualify Corbyn Tao, Josh Gillam, David Earl, or Alex Crepisnek. There is a chance that the Swarm roster will look different with their different location and they cannot retain some players because of this.
