The 2009 HFNHL Free Agency Season Begins:
The following are the rules and players eligible for free agency this off-season. Be sure to review all of the items below, as some rules have changed this year. Please read these rules very carefully. Once again, we will not listen to any complaints from General Managers who fail to follow these simple, but fundamental rules, and keep in mind that submitting in the wrong format will result in your offer being ignored without exception. It’s a lot of work to go through these offers and following the requested format reduces the workload considerably.
This list of free agents list will be finalized by this Sunday and will be posted on Yahoo board. For the most recent updates to this notice, please refer to the message board.
The Rules:
I. Submission: All offers must be sent to [email protected] - all e-mails get received and I’m in the process of trying to get rid of the notice about the mailbox being full, which is incorrect – that said, I’ll confirm receipt of offers as they arrive. The subject of the e-mail should be "HFNHL Contract Offers: Team Name". If you send an email with a different subject it will not be sorted properly and may be lost.
Ideally, your offers should be sent via excel or as a table within the e-mail, as noted in the format below.
II. Format: All offers should be in the following prioritized bid format:
Rank Player Name Prev Team: Base Salary x No. Years
For Example:
Priority Player Name Team Salary ($) Term (yrs)
1 Wayne Gretzky EDM $7,500,000 4
1 Gordie Howe DET $7,000,000 4
2 Guy Lafleur MONT $6,000,000 4
1 Bobby Orr BOS $7,000,000 4
2 Denis Potvin NYI $5,000,000 4
1 Brian Trottier NYI $1,500,000 2
2 Bob Gainey MONT $1,250,000 4
In the above instance, you would sign Gretzky, Howe, Orr and Trottier if your bids were the best on all four. Lafleur would only be signed if you failed to land Gretzky or Howe, while Potvin would only be signed if you failed to land Orr and Gainey only if you failed to sign Ricci.
Basically, since all negotiation happens at once, this allows you to avoid getting stuck with more players than you wanted. You can have as many groupings as you want, and list further choices as well (3rd, 4th etc.). But keep in mind in the above scenario with four ‘#1’ priority offers, these bids could result in the team landing all four players.
There may be instances where your second choice is ready to sign with you right away, but you are still in another round of bidding for your higher selection. For instance, Gainey may be willing to sign that deal, but you are still in the final bidding for Trottier. In this case, the General Manager would be contacted and given the option to pull the trigger on Gainey right away, and/or remain in the bidding for Trottier (which would result in re-opening the bidding for Gainey if the General Manager held off signing the deal with Gainey immediately).
Keep in mind, the longer a priority list, the less likely a player low down on the list will consider the offer if several of your team is still in the hunt for higher priority players on the same list (basically, the agent gets a feel for whether the offer will ever become firm or not).
Once again, the maximum salary in the HFNHL remains $8 million per year.
And finally, there are no signing bonuses and no performance bonuses.
III. Restricted Free Agents :
OFFER -- COMPENSATION
• Up to $994,000 - No compensation
• $994,000 to $1,506,000 million - One 3rd round draft pick
• $1,506,000 to $3,013,000 million - One second round pick
• $3,013,000 to $4,520,000 million - One 1st and one 3rd round pick
• $4,520,000 to $6,026,000 million - One 1st, one 2nd and one 3rd round pick
• $6,026,000 to $7,533,000 million - Two 1sts, one 2nd and one 3rd round pick
• Over $7.533.000 million - Four 1st round picks
Compensation must be paid in consecutive years beginning with the 2010 draft. DO NOT BID ON AN RFA IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THE APPROPRIATE COMPENSATION. If you do, you risk being fined as one team was last year (a minimum penalty of $500,000 will apply). Also, you can only bid on as many RFAs as you have compensation to pay. You cannot bid on 5 players, and then decide which ones you want to keep later, although you can prioritize offer sheets as per the description above.
IV. Bidding Deadline:
Bids are due by Midnight EST on the 19th of July and are to be sent no earlier than Midnight on the 12th of July (to ensure all those involved in free agency have submitted their offers already). Bids should be sent to [email protected].
V. Evaluation of Bids:
Bids will be reviewed based on total salary (base * years), ice time, line-mates, contender status, player loyalty, etc. However, annual compensation will be the main factor, followed by player loyalty. When necessary, several Admin team members will be used to evaluate close bidding. A few other notes:
- If one bid is clearly superior (rating at least 20% higher than the next highest bid), the player will sign immediately with that team**
- If one bid is received, the player will sign with that team**
- If three or more bids are received and none sign the player in the first round, there will be a second round (and ONLY one more round) of bidding, with the top three bidding teams participating, and going through the same review process. The top bid submitted thus far will also be revealed. At the end of this second round, the top bid will sign the player**
**IMPORTANT NOTE - if the best offers received for a player are obviously well below legitimate market value (for example, signing Martin Broduer to a $2 million contract), the league office retains the right to have the player hold out and wait to receive a better offer at another point in the season. This holds true for RFAs as well - a team presenting an offer sheet to another team's RFA does not automatically sign the player in question - they have to feel the offer is a good one first, then the team holding the rights has the choice to match or not. So please keep in mind the qualifying offer a player must have already turned down when considering making an offer (i.e. it should be significantly better than a 10% raise).
Teams with Restricted Free Agents: those teams whose players sign offer sheets will have the option to match the offer in question or receive compensation (either negotiated or draft picks as per above). Regardless, any player signing an offer sheet will automatically have a no-trade clause for the next year.
VI. All offers are final.
SO PLEASE LET ME KNOW BEFORE YOU MAKE AN OFFER IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS.
VII. Eligibility:
Teams can bid on any of the players listed, plus eligible players not represented in the HFNHL.
A. North American Free Agency Eligibility
(i) The players birth year is 1989 or earlier (20+ years of age)
(ii) Player is not playing in the NCAA (graduated or left early to sign a pro contract - link required)
B. European Free Agency Eligibility (New Rule)
(i) The players birth year is 1987 or earlier (the player must be a minimum 22 years of age at signing)
(ii) The player is currently in a North American league or has signed a contract to return to the NHL for the 2009/10 season (GM must provide a link supporting the latter)
Note: this rule has changed, in that a player does not have to have played a game in the NHL or AHL before being eligible to be signed, but rather has just signed an agreement to play in the NHL this coming season. However, even if they have signed, they are still subject to rule (VIII) Free Agent Playing in Europe, in the event they return overseas.
Post-Free Agency rules: Any Europeans who has not signed to play in the NHL, but subsequently signs an NHL deal after July 12th, will be eligible for free agent offers from any HFNHL team with the top offers evaluated a minimum of 48 hours past the date of the official signing, similar to past protocol.
European born players fall under North American rules if they meet one of the following conditions:
(i) NHL drafted players - They played in a North American league in the season prior to being drafted into the NHL. Having played in NA after being drafted is irrelevant.
(ii) NHL un-drafted players - They played in a North American league in the year just prior to them turning 20. In all other cases the European FA rules apply.
Keep in mind the number of contract years for younger player is set in stone. For prospects and rookies under 25 years old - who are also subject to the updated rookie salary cap of $900,000 –they are limited to following contract lengths:
• 3 years if they are between the ages of 18-21
• 2 years if they sign at age 22 or 23,
• 1 year if they their first contract at age 24
Failure to adhere to the proper term for these rookies will result in the offer not being considered.
VIII. Signed Player Playing in Europe
If a free agent is signed this off-season that ultimately commits to playing in Europe before November 15th, 2008, the player will be removed from your roster and placed on your prospect list at a price of $50,000 year. Players who have already committed to playing in Europe next season are not eligible for free agency, with fines applied to those offers where the player in not eligible (do your research!).
IX. Salary Cap
Keep in mind the salary cap for 2009-2010 is $56.7 million and the salary cap for 2010-2011 will likely be $56.8 million. Plan your offers accordingly. As a reminder, the salary cap will calculated as follows:
1. There will be three check points, start of season, game 30-35, and the trade deadline but there are no penalties attached to any single checkpoint.
2. Team payroll will be recorded at each check point on a spreadsheet and weighted average of the three will be used to determine any potential excess of the hard cap (plus applicable penalties) at season end.
3. To avoid timing issues related to injuries impacting pro payroll and to avoid teams hiding over-priced players on their farm team, we will calculate payroll at each checkpoint as follows – The Top 21 OV players at 100% of salary (excluding 'dummy' types) regardless of whether they are on the farm or pro team. If there is a tie of multiple players with an equal OV for the 21st position the highest salary player will be used.
X. Roster Limit
Keep in mind the roster limit for the upcoming season is a total of 80 players between your pro roster and prospect list. Many teams are near or at the maximum already, so be sure to take this into consideration before submitting offers. Player buyouts and prospect releases have already taken place, so there remains no other way to get rid of a player on your roster until next offseason other than trading. Draft pick and financial penalties may be levied against any team above the 80 player limit at the start of the regular season.
Richie Swingstein
HFNHL Player Agent
The following are the rules and players eligible for free agency this off-season. Be sure to review all of the items below, as some rules have changed this year. Please read these rules very carefully. Once again, we will not listen to any complaints from General Managers who fail to follow these simple, but fundamental rules, and keep in mind that submitting in the wrong format will result in your offer being ignored without exception. It’s a lot of work to go through these offers and following the requested format reduces the workload considerably.
This list of free agents list will be finalized by this Sunday and will be posted on Yahoo board. For the most recent updates to this notice, please refer to the message board.
The Rules:
I. Submission: All offers must be sent to [email protected] - all e-mails get received and I’m in the process of trying to get rid of the notice about the mailbox being full, which is incorrect – that said, I’ll confirm receipt of offers as they arrive. The subject of the e-mail should be "HFNHL Contract Offers: Team Name". If you send an email with a different subject it will not be sorted properly and may be lost.
Ideally, your offers should be sent via excel or as a table within the e-mail, as noted in the format below.
II. Format: All offers should be in the following prioritized bid format:
Rank Player Name Prev Team: Base Salary x No. Years
For Example:
Priority Player Name Team Salary ($) Term (yrs)
1 Wayne Gretzky EDM $7,500,000 4
1 Gordie Howe DET $7,000,000 4
2 Guy Lafleur MONT $6,000,000 4
1 Bobby Orr BOS $7,000,000 4
2 Denis Potvin NYI $5,000,000 4
1 Brian Trottier NYI $1,500,000 2
2 Bob Gainey MONT $1,250,000 4
In the above instance, you would sign Gretzky, Howe, Orr and Trottier if your bids were the best on all four. Lafleur would only be signed if you failed to land Gretzky or Howe, while Potvin would only be signed if you failed to land Orr and Gainey only if you failed to sign Ricci.
Basically, since all negotiation happens at once, this allows you to avoid getting stuck with more players than you wanted. You can have as many groupings as you want, and list further choices as well (3rd, 4th etc.). But keep in mind in the above scenario with four ‘#1’ priority offers, these bids could result in the team landing all four players.
There may be instances where your second choice is ready to sign with you right away, but you are still in another round of bidding for your higher selection. For instance, Gainey may be willing to sign that deal, but you are still in the final bidding for Trottier. In this case, the General Manager would be contacted and given the option to pull the trigger on Gainey right away, and/or remain in the bidding for Trottier (which would result in re-opening the bidding for Gainey if the General Manager held off signing the deal with Gainey immediately).
Keep in mind, the longer a priority list, the less likely a player low down on the list will consider the offer if several of your team is still in the hunt for higher priority players on the same list (basically, the agent gets a feel for whether the offer will ever become firm or not).
Once again, the maximum salary in the HFNHL remains $8 million per year.
And finally, there are no signing bonuses and no performance bonuses.
III. Restricted Free Agents :
OFFER -- COMPENSATION
• Up to $994,000 - No compensation
• $994,000 to $1,506,000 million - One 3rd round draft pick
• $1,506,000 to $3,013,000 million - One second round pick
• $3,013,000 to $4,520,000 million - One 1st and one 3rd round pick
• $4,520,000 to $6,026,000 million - One 1st, one 2nd and one 3rd round pick
• $6,026,000 to $7,533,000 million - Two 1sts, one 2nd and one 3rd round pick
• Over $7.533.000 million - Four 1st round picks
Compensation must be paid in consecutive years beginning with the 2010 draft. DO NOT BID ON AN RFA IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THE APPROPRIATE COMPENSATION. If you do, you risk being fined as one team was last year (a minimum penalty of $500,000 will apply). Also, you can only bid on as many RFAs as you have compensation to pay. You cannot bid on 5 players, and then decide which ones you want to keep later, although you can prioritize offer sheets as per the description above.
IV. Bidding Deadline:
Bids are due by Midnight EST on the 19th of July and are to be sent no earlier than Midnight on the 12th of July (to ensure all those involved in free agency have submitted their offers already). Bids should be sent to [email protected].
V. Evaluation of Bids:
Bids will be reviewed based on total salary (base * years), ice time, line-mates, contender status, player loyalty, etc. However, annual compensation will be the main factor, followed by player loyalty. When necessary, several Admin team members will be used to evaluate close bidding. A few other notes:
- If one bid is clearly superior (rating at least 20% higher than the next highest bid), the player will sign immediately with that team**
- If one bid is received, the player will sign with that team**
- If three or more bids are received and none sign the player in the first round, there will be a second round (and ONLY one more round) of bidding, with the top three bidding teams participating, and going through the same review process. The top bid submitted thus far will also be revealed. At the end of this second round, the top bid will sign the player**
**IMPORTANT NOTE - if the best offers received for a player are obviously well below legitimate market value (for example, signing Martin Broduer to a $2 million contract), the league office retains the right to have the player hold out and wait to receive a better offer at another point in the season. This holds true for RFAs as well - a team presenting an offer sheet to another team's RFA does not automatically sign the player in question - they have to feel the offer is a good one first, then the team holding the rights has the choice to match or not. So please keep in mind the qualifying offer a player must have already turned down when considering making an offer (i.e. it should be significantly better than a 10% raise).
Teams with Restricted Free Agents: those teams whose players sign offer sheets will have the option to match the offer in question or receive compensation (either negotiated or draft picks as per above). Regardless, any player signing an offer sheet will automatically have a no-trade clause for the next year.
VI. All offers are final.
SO PLEASE LET ME KNOW BEFORE YOU MAKE AN OFFER IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS.
VII. Eligibility:
Teams can bid on any of the players listed, plus eligible players not represented in the HFNHL.
A. North American Free Agency Eligibility
(i) The players birth year is 1989 or earlier (20+ years of age)
(ii) Player is not playing in the NCAA (graduated or left early to sign a pro contract - link required)
B. European Free Agency Eligibility (New Rule)
(i) The players birth year is 1987 or earlier (the player must be a minimum 22 years of age at signing)
(ii) The player is currently in a North American league or has signed a contract to return to the NHL for the 2009/10 season (GM must provide a link supporting the latter)
Note: this rule has changed, in that a player does not have to have played a game in the NHL or AHL before being eligible to be signed, but rather has just signed an agreement to play in the NHL this coming season. However, even if they have signed, they are still subject to rule (VIII) Free Agent Playing in Europe, in the event they return overseas.
Post-Free Agency rules: Any Europeans who has not signed to play in the NHL, but subsequently signs an NHL deal after July 12th, will be eligible for free agent offers from any HFNHL team with the top offers evaluated a minimum of 48 hours past the date of the official signing, similar to past protocol.
European born players fall under North American rules if they meet one of the following conditions:
(i) NHL drafted players - They played in a North American league in the season prior to being drafted into the NHL. Having played in NA after being drafted is irrelevant.
(ii) NHL un-drafted players - They played in a North American league in the year just prior to them turning 20. In all other cases the European FA rules apply.
Keep in mind the number of contract years for younger player is set in stone. For prospects and rookies under 25 years old - who are also subject to the updated rookie salary cap of $900,000 –they are limited to following contract lengths:
• 3 years if they are between the ages of 18-21
• 2 years if they sign at age 22 or 23,
• 1 year if they their first contract at age 24
Failure to adhere to the proper term for these rookies will result in the offer not being considered.
VIII. Signed Player Playing in Europe
If a free agent is signed this off-season that ultimately commits to playing in Europe before November 15th, 2008, the player will be removed from your roster and placed on your prospect list at a price of $50,000 year. Players who have already committed to playing in Europe next season are not eligible for free agency, with fines applied to those offers where the player in not eligible (do your research!).
IX. Salary Cap
Keep in mind the salary cap for 2009-2010 is $56.7 million and the salary cap for 2010-2011 will likely be $56.8 million. Plan your offers accordingly. As a reminder, the salary cap will calculated as follows:
1. There will be three check points, start of season, game 30-35, and the trade deadline but there are no penalties attached to any single checkpoint.
2. Team payroll will be recorded at each check point on a spreadsheet and weighted average of the three will be used to determine any potential excess of the hard cap (plus applicable penalties) at season end.
3. To avoid timing issues related to injuries impacting pro payroll and to avoid teams hiding over-priced players on their farm team, we will calculate payroll at each checkpoint as follows – The Top 21 OV players at 100% of salary (excluding 'dummy' types) regardless of whether they are on the farm or pro team. If there is a tie of multiple players with an equal OV for the 21st position the highest salary player will be used.
X. Roster Limit
Keep in mind the roster limit for the upcoming season is a total of 80 players between your pro roster and prospect list. Many teams are near or at the maximum already, so be sure to take this into consideration before submitting offers. Player buyouts and prospect releases have already taken place, so there remains no other way to get rid of a player on your roster until next offseason other than trading. Draft pick and financial penalties may be levied against any team above the 80 player limit at the start of the regular season.
Richie Swingstein
HFNHL Player Agent
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