Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 193
Entry level contracts
7/17/2017 at 8:31 PM
How do Entry-Level Contracts Work?
Players younger than 25 years of age as of September 15 during the year of their first NHL contract must sign an entry-level contract which have set limitations - all entry-level contracts are two-way contracts and the maximum allowable salary for players drafted until 2022 is $925,000.
The length of the entry-level contract is also dependent on the player’s age:
18-21 years of age: 3 years
22-23 years of age: 2 years
24 years of age: 1 year
Entry-level contracts can still i:nclude signing and performance bonuses. Signing bonuses may not exceed 10 percent of the contract’s total compensation, and is paid to players annually. Performance bonuses for entry-level contracts, that are paid by the team and count against the salary cap cannot exceed a maximum of $2,850,000. Performance Bonuses are broken into 2 categories: Schedule A and Schedule B. Schedule A Bonuses may not exceed $212,500 per individual bonus, and $850,000 in total. There are two types of Schedule B Bonuses. League-wide award/trophy bonuses that are paid by the league and are not captured within the actual entry-level contract signed by the player, and player & club agreed upon bonuses, of which the maximum is $2million per season.
What is an Entry Level Slide?
If a player who is signed to an entry-level contract and is 18 or 19 years of age (as of September 15 of the signing year), does not play in a minimum of 10 NHL games (including both regular season and playoffs: AHL games do not count), their contract is considered to ‘slide’, or extend, by one year. For example, if a player signed an ELC for three seasons from 2015-16 to 2017-2018, and their contract slides, their contract is now effective from 2016-17 to 2018-19. An exception to this rule is that if the player is 19 on September 15 of the first year of their contract, and turns 20 between September 16 and December 31, their contract does not slide.
Players who sign at 18 years old are eligible to have their contracted extended for 2 seasons. This extension does not apply if the player turns 20 between September 16 and December 31 in his signing year. Signing bonuses do not slide, and are paid to the player regardless of a slide, this causes the annual average of the players contract to change, and therefore the cap hit decreases for this player.