Contracts (ELC, RFA, UFA)

[Admin]

General contract policies

There are three general types of contract/free agent situations:

- Entry-level contracts (ELC)s for drafted prospects are for three years, with salaries determined by their draft slots from charts listed below.

- Free agents: Players who are under 27 years old as of July 1 in their contract expiry year will be considered as Restricted Free Agents (RFAs). All other players with no team holding heir rights are considered unrestricted free agents (UFAs).

1. General Free Agent Rules

- Free agent contracts cannot exceed seven (7) years in length.

- The league maximum salary is 9M and the minimum is 600K. The last remaining grandfathered contracts below league minimum expired in 2021.

- Re-signings of players with expiring contracts are handled after the draft and before the UFA period begins.

- Upon signing a new contract, all players 60OV and above on the pending UFA page are subject to an automatic salary increase or decrease based on EHEC's contracts extension calculator. Players below the 60 OV threshold will accept league minimum regardless of their current salary.

- To see all players including future free agents, consult this page and paste the player(s) you are interested in into the sheet in rows 600+.

The relevant columns are RFA, UFA, and UFA? (A-C). Consult UFA? (C) to find out if your favourite player is RFA or UFA (or see the rules below), then choose the appropriate salary column. Keep in mind that RFAs on their second contract have additional bonuses if they are 5+ years in length; see below for details.

- All contracts will need to follow this chart:
League Minimum Salary to $750,000 : 1 year length maximum
$800,000 to $1,150,000: 2 years
$1,200,000 to $2,950,000 : 3 years
$3,000,000 to $4,950,000 : 5 years
$5,000,000 and over : 7 years

- All contracts offered for players coming off their ELC will have an extra 10% added to their base salary for every year of the contract beyond the 4th year, if your offer is for 5-7 years. Contract offers of 1-4 years in length will not be affected. All other players are not affected by this rule.

- All new contracts must be made in steps of $50,000. All offers made that do not conform to this rule will be "stepped up" to the next multiple of 50K. Example: Bids of 1,000,001 will be considered 1,050,000. A bid of 1,050,001 will be 1,100,000. And so on. Starting in 2020, the minimum step will be $50k at all salaries (previously, steps of $20k were allowed below $800k).

2. Restricted Free Agent Rules

- To become a restricted free agent (RFA), a player must first receive a qualifying offer (QO) from his current team. The QO is a one-year, 20% increase contract, rounded to the nearest multiple of $50,000 (nearest even multiple if the remainder is $25k). Starting in 2024, the minimum QO is $800k.

- Once a RFA has received a qualifying offer, other teams can send an offer sheet. To send an offer sheet, a team must have his own picks for the compensation associated with the salary being offered. The offer sheet must be posted in the free agency forum and must at least match the salary determined by the salary calculator, until September 1, game date. After that date, offer sheets must be at least a 20% increase on the player's currently listed salary. Salaries below league minimum will be adjusted to that number. And on September 15, RFA who have received no other offers will be signed with their "owning team" for a one-year deal at 120% of their previous contract.

- The length of all offer sheets is determined as follows: offers at the 20% raise are for one year; offers that are between a 20% raise and the calculator offer, or more can be for two years; offers above the calculator number are subject to the regular contract-length rules. EXAMPLE: a player making 1M is calculated to receive 3M for his next deal, but is only qualified by his GM. Offers of 1.2M (20% raise) are single-year offers; offers between 2.1M and 3M are for 2 years; offers exceeding 3M can be from 1-5 years.

-The offer sheet (the winning bid) will be referred to the GM holding the player’s rights, who must decide to either match or decline to match the offer within 48 hours (the default decision will be to match, in the event of no timely response). If the "owning" GM declines the offer, the RFA will be signed to his new team, and the "owning" GM will be entitled to the following compensation based on the amount of the offer:

- Offer Sheet Salary Compensation:
$800,000 or below = No compensation
$800,001 to $1,250,000 = Third-round pick
$1,250,001 to $2,500,000 = Second-round pick
$2,500,001 to $3,750,000 = First-round pick and third round pick
$3,750,001 to $5,000,000 = First-round pick, second-round pick and third round pick
$5,000,001 to $6,250,000 = Two first-round picks, second-round pick, third-round pick
$6,250,001 or above = Four first-round picks

To simplify things, compensatory draft picks must all belong to the team signing the offer sheet and be from the next draft. In case multiple first round picks are due, they must be in consecutive years starting from the next draft, i.e. as soon as possible.

- RFAs can be traded, as a rights deal, just like a player on an expiring contract. Any existing contract offers (qualifying offers and in-progress offer sheets) transfer to the traded player's new team.

3. Unrestricted Free Agent Bidding Rules

- The first bidder on a free agent must start a thread titled with the player's name and the initial offer. Legal bids cannot be withdrawn or changed. Think carefully before you make an offer.

- Illegal bids - such as those that offer too many years for the given salary - will be rejected.

- Other bidders will reply in the on-going thread with their offers. The winning bid is the bid with the highest annual value. Contract length is a tiebreaker, i.e., 2y 800k beats 1y 800k, but 1y 850k beats both.

- There is no limit in the number of bids you can make.

- Bidding will close once the high bid has stood unbeaten for at least 24 hours and once 48 hours have passed since the first bid.

- Skaters under 60 OA (as per the https://ehec.pro/ufa.php page) and goalies under 73 OA may be given one-year, 600k contracts without bidding ("fast-signed"). Players fast-signed by league staff (e.g. to complete AHL lines for a sim) may be released with no penalty.

4. Entry-Level Contract Rules

- The following salary grid (in $million) applies to all draftees from the 2020 draft onwards:
1-5: 3.0, 2.75, 2.5, 2.25, 2
6-10: 1.9, 1.8, 1.7, 1.6, 1.5
11-15: 1.45, 1.4, 1.35, 1.3, 1.25
16-20: 1.25, 1.2, 1.2, 1.15, 1.15
21-23: 1.1
24-26: 1.05
27-30: 1.0
31-34: 0.95
35-38: 0.9
39-42: 0.85
43-46: 0.8
47-50: 0.75
51-55: 0.7
56-60: 0.65
61+: 0.6

- The following salary grid applies to all draftees up to 2019:
1-10 = $2,000,000
11-20 = $1,600,000
21-30 = $1,400,000
31-40 = $1,200,000
41-50 = $1,000,000
51-60 = $800,000
61-75 = $720,000
76-90 = $680,000
91-105 = $640,000
106-150 = League minimum

Entry-level Contract Slide
Beginning in 2020, players on entry-level contracts who play fewer than 10 pro games (i.e. not farm, but including both regular season and plyoffs) in their 18- or 19-year-old seasons (i.e. first and second after being drafted, whether they are in juniors or the AHL) will have their contracts 'slide' for an additional year, as in the NHL.

Entry-level Contract Signing Period (POT Booster rule)
Beginning in 2020, ELCs for first-time eligible draftees (i.e. 18 year-olds) will not be signed until UFA begins. This means that POT boosters (prospects with <70 POT and >=75 CON) will not be able to boost immediately after being drafted, and will have generally just one good chance at boosting (20+ year-old prospects can boost but extremely rarely).

[SharksGM]

Previously, goalie salaries were given by the following table. This is no longer used; the cap calculator gives numbers for goalies as well. The table is shown here for posterity:

Code: Select all

POT   $   CON   $
69-   0.7   69-   -0.1
70   1   70   0
71   1.2   71   0.1
72   1.4   72   0.2
73   1.6   73   0.3
74   1.8   74   0.4
75   2   75   0.5
76   2.2   76   0.6
77   2.4   77   0.7
78   2.6   78   0.8
79   2.8   79   0.9
80   3   80   1
81   3.2   81   1.1
82   3.4   82   1.2
83   3.6   83   1.3
84   3.8   84   1.4
85   4   85   1.5
86   4.2   86   1.6
87   4.6   87   1.7
88   5   88   1.8
89   5.5   89   1.9
90   6   90   2
91+   6.5   91+   2.2

Salary number above are in millions of dollars. Note also that the salary "penalty" of -100K for lower cons will go up for every con value below 70, to a maximum of 1M. So a goalie with a con of 65 will have 500K taken from his pot salary base, while a goalie with a con of 60 or lower will have 1M taken from his salary base. The reverse does not apply to high pots and cons, at the other end of the table.

[Bernyhawks]

For players becoming UFA (27 and up), we check the calculator to re-sign them or they automaticly get on the market?

[Calgary.Flames]

You sign whoever you choose to.

[DevilsGM]

- All new contracts must be made in steps of $50,000. All offers made that do not conform to this rule will be "stepped up" to the next multiple of 50K. Example: Bids of 1,000,001 will be considered 1,050,000. A bid of 1,050,001 will be 1,100,000. And so on. The exception to this will be bids near the league minimum: these bids can go from 600K to 610K to 620K before the 50K step rule takes effect.

What is "near league minimum". Just saw an 810K bid and "technically" its not illegal as there isn't a hard limit outside of the over $1M example provided here.

[Vik (Habs)]

- All new contracts must be made in steps of $50,000. All offers made that do not conform to this rule will be "stepped up" to the next multiple of 50K. Example: Bids of 1,000,001 will be considered 1,050,000. A bid of 1,050,001 will be 1,100,000. And so on. The exception to this will be bids near the league minimum: these bids can go from 600K to 610K to 620K before the 50K step rule takes effect.

What is "near league minimum". Just saw an 810K bid and "technically" its not illegal as there isn't a hard limit outside of the over $1M example provided here.

1M is the maximum for the 10k steps. Can't find where I got it from but found this post of mine during last season's free agency period.

[DevilsGM]

I saw an offer get retracted in one of the free agency threads, what are the guidelines surrounding that?

[Calgary.Flames]

Saw that too. Well, you can’t withdraw from your bids but IIRC there was already other highest bids so it became kind of irrelevant.

For example, you can not bid on all the goalies, then withdraw from all but the one you finally end up getting the cheapest. Na’mean?!

[DevilsGM]

Yeah, that is kind of what I figured.

[SharksGM]

Saw that too. Well, you can’t withdraw from your bids but IIRC there was already other highest bids so it became kind of irrelevant.

No, the bids after that were all lower. I think it's inconsistent with the rules as written and would set a bad precedent.

[SharksGM]

- The length of all offers is determined as follows: offers at the 20% raise are for one year; offers that are between a 20% raise and the calculator offer, or more can be for two years; offers above the calculator number are subject to the regular contract-length rules. EXAMPLE: a player making 1M is calculated to receive 3M for his next deal, but is only qualified by his GM. Offers of 1.2M (20% raise) are single-year offers; offers between 2.1M and 3M are for 2 years; offers exceeding 3M can be from 1-5 years.

This should read:

"offers between a 20% raise and halfway to the calculator offer (exclusive) cannot exceed one year in length; offers between the halfway point and the calculator number can be up to two years in length."

... otherwise the example doesn't make sense. The 2.1M figure is the average (halfway between) of 1.2M and 3M.

I will think about the logic of what happens when 20% raise > calculator number later, although I can't think of a reason why one would want to give a QO in such a case.

[SharksGM]

- All new contracts must be made in steps of $50,000. All offers made that do not conform to this rule will be "stepped up" to the next multiple of 50K. Example: Bids of 1,000,001 will be considered 1,050,000. A bid of 1,050,001 will be 1,100,000. And so on. The exception to this will be bids near the league minimum: bids under 800k may increase in steps of 20,000.

Please note this change for future bidding. As was pointed out elsewhere, there was no firm rule on what "bids near the league minimum" meant. I added the limit of 800k and increased the bid size from 10k to 20k so as to discourage pointless bidding wars going from 600kx1 to 600kx2 to 610kx2, etc.

[Bernyhawks]

Around when in the season do you usually release the new contract extension calculator?

[SharksGM]

Around when in the season do you usually release the new contract extension calculator?

Since I evidently forgot to reply to this, the calculator and formulae haven't changed for a few years now. All I do is update it with next year's pending free agents when the old numbers are no longer relevant, and again after the draft to take into account the latest player attributes. You're always free to use the part of the spreadsheet that isn't protected to add your own players.

Note that you need to use http://ehec.pro/ufa.php?pending=1 because it includes the player greed attribute, which is relevant for UFAs.

[Jets GM]

Is it cells AK/AL or AN?

[SharksGM]

Is it cells AK/AL or AN?

I put all of the relevant information in the first five columns and people still look at the very end??

[Dallas Stars GM]

Excellent work.

[SharksGM]

- To become a restricted free agent (RFA), a player must first receive a qualifying offer (QO) from his current team. The QO is a one-year, 20% increase contract, rounded to the nearest multiple of $50,000 (nearest even multiple if the remainder is $25k).

Besides the new rule changes (2020+ ELC slots, $50k UFA bid step even below $800k, etc.), I also added this clarification about QOs.

[SharksGM]

- RFAs can be traded, as a rights deal, just like a player on an expiring contract. Any existing contract offers (qualifying offers and in-progress offer sheets) transfer to the traded player's new team.

I clarified this section. Before, it read:

Salary offers by the new GM must at least match that determined by the salary calculator.

... which could have been interpreted as forbidding qualifying offers from the new team. That was not the intent, and anyway all previous RFA trades had their QOs transferred, as far as I know.

Note that the new wording does imply that you cannot rescind qualifying offers after a trade, which I don't think anyone has ever wanted to do, but anyway.

[TBGM - Geoff]

Clarification about RFA vs. UFA:

Alex Coulombe just turned 26 (Apr. 9/95), but in the contract extension calculator, it says TRUE under UFA. Please confirm/clarify.

[TorontoGM]

Clarification about RFA vs. UFA:

Alex Coulombe just turned 26 (Apr. 9/95), but in the contract extension calculator, it says TRUE under UFA. Please confirm/clarify.

I don't remember seeing Dan mention anything about the calculator being updated yet, so that's probably why.

[SharksGM]

Clarification about RFA vs. UFA:

Alex Coulombe just turned 26 (Apr. 9/95), but in the contract extension calculator, it says TRUE under UFA. Please confirm/clarify.

That was a mistake - I must have incremented it to 1994 earlier, then again to 1995. The cutoff is back to 1994/7/1 as it should be.

[TBGM - Geoff]

Clarification about RFA vs. UFA:

Alex Coulombe just turned 26 (Apr. 9/95), but in the contract extension calculator, it says TRUE under UFA. Please confirm/clarify.

That was a mistake - I must have incremented it to 1994 earlier, then again to 1995. The cutoff is back to 1994/7/1 as it should be.

Muchas gracias for the correction.

[SharksGM]

- All contracts will need to follow this chart:
League Minimum Salary to $1,000,000 : 2 years length maximum
$1,050,000 to $2,950,000 : 3 years
$3,000,000 to $4,950,000 : 5 years
$5,000,000 and over : 7 years

The old chart is now amended to:

- All contracts will need to follow this chart:
League Minimum Salary to $750,000 : 1 year length maximum
$800,000 to $1,150,000: 2 years
$1,200,000 to $2,950,000 : 3 years
$3,000,000 to $4,950,000 : 5 years
$5,000,000 and over : 7 years

... as announced here.

[Bruins_GM]

Just as a refresher - Column A or AK for RFA figures in the Contract Calculator?

[SharksGM]

I re-arranged some of the sections and removed a couple of redundant statements so that it is (hopefully) better organized.

One minor change:

- Skaters under 60 OA (as per the https://ehec.pro/ufa.php page) and goalies under 73 OA may be given one-year, 600k contracts without bidding ("fast-signed"). Players fast-signed by league staff (e.g. to complete AHL lines for a sim) may be released with no penalty.

Technically, I should also say that the salary requests for such marginal goalies are also always 600k, but I think they end up that way anyways unless they have 85+ LE/CON.

Just as a refresher - Column A or AK for RFA figures in the Contract Calculator?

The relevant columns are RFA, UFA, and UFA? (A-C). Consult UFA? (C) to find out if your favourite player is RFA or UFA (or see the rules below), then choose the appropriate salary column. Keep in mind that RFAs on their second contract have additional bonuses if they are 5+ years in length; see below for details.

[SharksGM]

Entry-level Contract Signing Period (POT Booster rule)
Beginning in 2020, ELCs for first-time eligible draftees (i.e. 18 year-olds) will not be signed until UFA begins. This means that POT boosters (prospects with <70 POT and >=75 CON) will not be able to boost immediately after being drafted, and will have generally just one good chance at boosting (20+ year-old prospects can boost but extremely rarely).

This has been amended to clarify that it only applies to fresh new draftees, so that you can draft a booster in their second year of eligibility and sign them right away (otherwise they'd be useless).

[SharksGM]

2. Restricted Free Agent Rules

- To become a restricted free agent (RFA), a player must first receive a qualifying offer (QO) from his current team. The QO is a one-year, 20% increase contract, rounded to the nearest multiple of $50,000 (nearest even multiple if the remainder is $25k). Starting in 2024, the minimum QO is $800k.

Added this rule as promised. Remember, this effectively only increases the QO for players previously making $600k; the $650k and above tiers were already rounded to at least $800k.