Four of the five Canadian world junior ranked players accused of sexual assault in reference to a June 2018 incident in London, Ontario, have been released by their NHL teams because they weren’t made a qualifying offer before Sunday's deadline.
Carter Hart of the Philadelphia Flyers, Dillon Dubé of the Calgary Flames and Michael McLeod and Cal Foote of the New Jersey Devils are all now unrestricted free agents. They had all been on paid leave from their teams since late January, once they were ordered to show themselves in to the London Police Service to reply to sexual harassment charges.
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A date for the negotiations has not yet been set. Each team had to choose whether to make a qualifying offer to retain the NHL rights to those players by 5 p.m. ET on Sunday. The Flyers, Flames and Devils all opted to not achieve this.
Had they done so and the offers been accepted (which they almost definitely would have been), the players would have continued to receive pay and would have remained on leave throughout the legal process, which could potentially last the whole next season.
There are currently no restrictions on them immediately signing with one other team, deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed Sunday night, but given the uncertainty surrounding their situations, it is going to likely be difficult for any of them to achieve this.
The NHL and the NHL Players' Association have been in talks in recent weeks a couple of possible freeze on players' status pending litigation, in response to league people acquainted with the talks, but they’ve not been in a position to agree on how that might be implemented.
It is feasible that Hart, Dubé, McLeod and Foote will explore opportunities to proceed their careers in Europe – just as Alex Formenton, the fifth player alongside them, did the last two seasons in Switzerland with HC Ambrì-Piotta.
Formenton's NHL rights remain with the Ottawa Senators until July 1, 2027, as he received a qualifying offer following the 2021–22 NHL season, which he didn’t accept and was subsequently placed on their reserve list.
The five players are accused of an incident in June 2018 that occurred in a room on the Delta London Armouries Hotel following a Hockey Canada gala celebrating the world junior team's gold medal win.
Two charges of sexual assault were brought against McLeod, and one each against Dubé, Foote, Formenton and Hart.
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