Comtois' qualifying offer is 2.445M. You can certainly make the case that he'd sign a multi-year contract for less but never a 1-yr deal. In doing that he's leaving 1.4M on the floor and/or losing an opportunity to become a free agent.

Thanks, Char. I was totally oblivious about his QO.

Honestly, I'm sitting here as a Ducks fan wondering what Verbeek is going to do about Comtois and his QO. I like the kid a lot (regardless of his scoring issues), but there's no way he's worth 2.5M AAV. Does he get cut loose like Milano did? Do they work out a 2-3 year deal below 1.5M? Trade him and make it some other teams problem?

We're in no cap trouble next season, and I believe it's either his last or second to last QO, so there's no risk in offering it as a show of faith for one season under a new coach and see if he pops back into form, and if not he's cut loose.