Everything There Is to Know About NHL Transactions

Trades

NHL player transactions include the exchange of players, prospects, and draft picks among teams. Teams only have until the trade deadline, which tends to fall on the last week of February or the first week of March. The trade deadline for the current season is Monday, February 26, 2018.

Signings, Terminations & Injury Designations

Other ways the players on a team are impacted are through signings, terminations, and injury designations.

Free agents

Players who are free agents have no contract and are able to sign with any club. Previously, players could have unrestricted free agency if they were 31 years old or over. After the CBA came out of the lockout in 2005, the rules changed. Now, players aged 27 and over, as well as those with at least seven years in the NHL with expired contracts, can become unrestricted free agents. Plus, players aged 22 years and over who are not selected in the NHL Draft can sign with any team as a free agent.

Unrestricted free agents can start negotiating and signing contracts with any team after July 1 of each year. Before, teams were awarded with draft picks as compensation when they lost unrestricted free agents. Since 2004, there has been no compensation.

Buyouts

Buyouts occur when teams buy a player at the end of a season for the remainder of the player’s contract. This impacts both pay and cap hit. For players under the age of 26, pay and cap hit are reduced by two-thirds. For players aged 26 to 35, pay and cap hit are reduced by one-third. Finally, for players over the age of 35, pay is reduced by one-third but cap hit is not reduced. In addition, the new team pays over twice the period of the remaining contract.

Injured Reserve List

Players who are injured, disabled, or sick and unable to play for at least seven days cannot be bought out. Instead, their teams may place them on the Injured Reserve List. A club can only put a player on the Injured Reserve List if the player had previously passed the initial physical examination of the season. The team can then replace the player on its NHL roster with someone else.

Assigning Players to the Minors & Call-Ups

If a player has already participated in a defined number of games or he has played in a certain number of seasons since the signing of the original contract, the player must be available to all NHL teams before he is assigned to the minors. This is called 'clearing waivers,' and it means that other NHL teams can 'claim' the player from the 'waiver wire,' meaning they assume the contract, and provide only a small financial compensation to the team from which the player originated. When players clear waivers, their teams have the right to loan them to a minor affiliate, typically an AHL team, or they can choose to keep them in their club. Once cleared, players don't need to do it again for the lesser of either 30 cumulative days on the roster, or until they've played in 10 games in the NHL.

Players can also rise from the minors to an NHL team. This is known as a call-up. Players may be called up due to an injury or suspension of another player, or a team can use a regular call-up of minor league affiliates who are yet to sign a contract.

The AHL

The AHL, or American Hockey League, is the primary development league for the NHL. The AHL is currently made up of 30 teams. Since there are currently 31 NHL teams, 3 NHL Teams are sharing 2 AHL teams. There are plans for the AHL to expand to 31 teams, so that each NHL team can once again have their own exclusive affiliate.

The ECHL

The ECHL (previously the East Coast Hockey League) is a mid-level league with teams from across the U.S. and Canada. It is the only other league (along with the AHL) to which all players with entry-level NHL contracts must report.

Roster Limits

Each team in the NHL has a roster limit of:

• 50 players on contract
• 20 players on “dressed list” for games
• 23 players on the active NHL roster
• 90 players on the reserve list

Players in the AHL and ECHL are part of the 50 contract limit but don’t contribute to the 23 active roster limit.

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