Entry Level Slide Tracker
What Is An Entry Level Slide?
When a player on an entry-level contract is 18 or 19 (as of Sept 15) their entry level contract is slide eligible. This means their team may choose to return them to junior and avoid using a year of their contract. In this case the contract slides. The net effect is that the term length of their contract doesn't start. There are still cap implications for each impacted year.
Exception : A player who signs an entry-level contract at age 19, and then turns 20 before Dec 31 of that year is not slide eligible
Slide Trigger Players may play up to 10 NHL games in a season (including playoffs) and be still be eligible to slide. As soon as they play 10 games, their contract starts and can no longer slide.
Cap Implications Signing bonuses are paid each year even if the contract slides. As contracts slide the annual cap hit is calculated as an average of remaining salary due over the actual contract length.
Yearly Cap Hit = (Contract Value - Signing Bonuses Paid) / Original Contract Length.
Term Length As the contract slides, the actual length of the contract remains the same as the original contract. The start/end date is just being pushed out, and the cap reduced by the signing bonuses that are paid each year regardless.
