Free agents have to be signed by end of June ?

Growlers

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Dec 9, 2017
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I read this in an article about the new head coach for the Newfoundland Growlers.

Can anyone confirm this please? All free agents need to be signed by the end of June.

"This hiring is not yet official, but we expect it to be soon, as the ECHL is in the midst of signing their free agents, and they have only until the end of June to get that done. While the Leafs will supply the Growlers with many players on AHL two-way contracts, all ECHL teams have to fill in the gaps with their own players."

Source: Ryane Clowe to become the head coach of the Newfoundland Growlers, The Telegram reports
 
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Tater Tot

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Jul 8, 2017
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Existing teams have until June 30th to re-sign their own players. The ones that aren't signed or don't get qualifying offers are free to go anywhere on July 1.
 
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Tater Tot

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Jul 8, 2017
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"While the Leafs will supply the Growlers with many players on AHL two-way contracts, all ECHL teams have to fill in the gaps with their own players."

Don't expect a ton of help in the form of AHL players on two way contracts. They wont sign a bunch of guys to AHL contracts so they can play in the ECHL all year. The bulk of your roster will be made up of players on standard ECHL contracts, in that case they can go to any AHL team on a PTO, not just the Marlies. You may only end up with 5 or 6 of them, if you even get that many.

At time last season we didn't have anybody on our roster from our AHL partner. Then other times we had guys from 3 different AHL teams. The most players we had at any one time that were on NHL/AHL contracts was 6, and that didn't last long.

It take a bit to get used to the way ECHL rosters work. They are strictly limited in size and tend be in a constant state of change.
 

royals119

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Jun 12, 2006
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"While the Leafs will supply the Growlers with many players on AHL two-way contracts, all ECHL teams have to fill in the gaps with their own players."

Don't expect a ton of help in the form of AHL players on two way contracts. They wont sign a bunch of guys to AHL contracts so they can play in the ECHL all year. The bulk of your roster will be made up of players on standard ECHL contracts, in that case they can go to any AHL team on a PTO, not just the Marlies. You may only end up with 5 or 6 of them, if you even get that many.

At time last season we didn't have anybody on our roster from our AHL partner. Then other times we had guys from 3 different AHL teams. The most players we had at any one time that were on NHL/AHL contracts was 6, and that didn't last long.

It take a bit to get used to the way ECHL rosters work. They are strictly limited in size and tend be in a constant state of change.
The Leafs have actually been pretty good about providing a significant number of AHL contracted players to their ECHL affiliate. Not a full roster of course, but more in the 7-10 range than the 5-6 range. Of course some will get called up during the year, as with any team. Surprisingly the Flyers did the same for the Royals this year. Half of the roster were AHL contracts to start, and I don't think it fell below 8 all season.
 

Growler

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May 16, 2018
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"While the Leafs will supply the Growlers with many players on AHL two-way contracts, all ECHL teams have to fill in the gaps with their own players."

Don't expect a ton of help in the form of AHL players on two way contracts. They wont sign a bunch of guys to AHL contracts so they can play in the ECHL all year. The bulk of your roster will be made up of players on standard ECHL contracts, in that case they can go to any AHL team on a PTO, not just the Marlies. You may only end up with 5 or 6 of them, if you even get that many.

At time last season we didn't have anybody on our roster from our AHL partner. Then other times we had guys from 3 different AHL teams. The most players we had at any one time that were on NHL/AHL contracts was 6, and that didn't last long.

It take a bit to get used to the way ECHL rosters work. They are strictly limited in size and tend be in a constant state of change.
The last couple years the Marlies have actually averaged sending 12 players to their ECHL primarily affiliate. On any given night, you would find anywhere between 8-12 Marlie AHL contracted players playing for the Solar Bears. In addition to this, the Marlies loaned a couple more players to other ECHL franchises when the roster got too full. Marlies averaged 16 AHL contracted players the pst 3 years. Just more than half of them got a sniff of the AHL. This will continue, and may even slightly increase with the Growlers to help them get off the ground.
 

Growler

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May 16, 2018
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The Leafs have actually been pretty good about providing a significant number of AHL contracted players to their ECHL affiliate. Not a full roster of course, but more in the 7-10 range than the 5-6 range. Of course some will get called up during the year, as with any team. Surprisingly the Flyers did the same for the Royals this year. Half of the roster were AHL contracts to start, and I don't think it fell below 8 all season.
Yea, I think this is the model of the ideal ECHL Farm model going forward. The Islanders and Pittsburgh are just behind Toronto in this model.
 
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210

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We only had one Islander player in Worcester (goaltender Eamon McAdam), but we had more than a handful of Bridgeport players here throughout the season. A couple late season players were added due to Islanders scouts wanting to see them play pro games. One, Ryan MacKinnon, signed an AHL/ECHL deal for 17-18 after just a handful of game here.
 

Woo Hockey

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Jul 5, 2014
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We only had one Islander player in Worcester (goaltender Eamon McAdam), but we had more than a handful of Bridgeport players here throughout the season. A couple late season players were added due to Islanders scouts wanting to see them play pro games. One, Ryan MacKinnon, signed an AHL/ECHL deal for 17-18 after just a handful of game here.
Schempp was under contract with NYI too.
 

Growler

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May 16, 2018
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We only had one Islander player in Worcester (goaltender Eamon McAdam), but we had more than a handful of Bridgeport players here throughout the season. A couple late season players were added due to Islanders scouts wanting to see them play pro games. One, Ryan MacKinnon, signed an AHL/ECHL deal for 17-18 after just a handful of game here.
By my count, you guys signed 14 AHL contracts last year and 8 of them played for the Railers at some point. That was the second most to Toronto which was 15/12. Under Snow, the Islanders have been leveraging the farm system the best the past 3+ years IMO. You have also developed as many AHL into NHL contracts as any other franchise. If anything, Toronto copied the Islanders, just threw more money at it the past 3 years.
 

crimsonace

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Mar 7, 2010
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Because of the NHL 50-contract limit, a lot of teams use AHL deals to get a look at longer-term prospects. It also helps the ECHL team by bringing in a player with a larger salary but only costing $525/week against the cap, giving it flexibility to sign higher-dollar players.

A few use them liberally - the Missouri Mavericks were practically an AHL team with Bridgeport contracts a few years back. The Leafs/Marlies have long stocked Orlando with several players (and I've heard 8-10 AHL/NHL-contracted players for Newfoundland this year). Other teams barely use them at all, and maybe have 1-3 AHL/NHL-contracted players in the ECHL at any given time.
 
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Growler

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May 16, 2018
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Because of the NHL 50-contract limit, a lot of teams use AHL deals to get a look at longer-term prospects. It also helps the ECHL team by bringing in a player with a larger salary but only costing $525/week against the cap, giving it flexibility to sign higher-dollar players.

A few use them liberally - the Missouri Mavericks were practically an AHL team with Bridgeport contracts a few years back. The Leafs/Marlies have long stocked Orlando with several players (and I've heard 8-10 AHL/NHL-contracted players for Newfoundland this year). Other teams barely use them at all, and maybe have 1-3 AHL/NHL-contracted players in the ECHL at any given time.

Already 17 AHL contracts signed by the Marlies, most of whom will be playing for the Growlers this year. They practically can ice an entire roster of AHL/NHL contracted players today. I started a thread about this here and it got derailed into 20 years of Maine Hockey history for some reason. But I am interested to know whether this AHL/ECHL Islanders/Leafs/Pittsburgh approach increasingly now being used by Winnipeg, Buffalo and Philly is the way of the future. It is akin to how the Big Clubs have changed in their usage of the AHL the past 10 years. The AHL transformed from an older pro goon league pretty radically the past few years. I believe we are starting to see the same in the ECHL. I just wonder whether it will pay off for the big club and for the players themselves. I suspect it should TBD.

BTW - the Bruins have been somewhere middle of the pack in this approach.
 
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Growlers

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Dec 9, 2017
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I find it very interesting too how the leagues are changing. I have heard the Leafs are kinda leading this trend. Just wondering how you know the other teams are also? I would like to keep an eye on it and wondering what is the best was to measure it?

Is one was how many players are assigned to it from the NHL team?
 

Growler

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May 16, 2018
341
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I find it very interesting too how the leagues are changing. I have heard the Leafs are kinda leading this trend. Just wondering how you know the other teams are also? I would like to keep an eye on it and wondering what is the best was to measure it?

Is one was how many players are assigned to it from the NHL team?
I keep track of how many AHL contracts are signed by each team and how many of those AHL (and NHL) contracts play at least 1 game for an ECHL team (90%+ are the affiliate). I have trended this over the past 4 years. This is the fifth year I have been tracking this. There have been 30 more AHL contracts signed last year vs. 4 years ago, but the majority of that increase is from the Leafs, Sabres, Jets and Islanders. But every year, the trend is increasing slightly. Likewise, each year the number of AHL contracts offered an ELC increases slightly. Some teams are consistently using AHL contracts a fair bit, others hardly use them at all. The whole thing is an interesting phenomenon.

Follow the 2018-19 AHL Contracts thread in the AHL section by Booba. He tracks them all there. I used to do it myself on Elite Prospects and Spreadsheets. Booba saved me dozens of hours.
 
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royals119

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Jun 12, 2006
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West Lawn, PA
I find it very interesting too how the leagues are changing. I have heard the Leafs are kinda leading this trend. Just wondering how you know the other teams are also? I would like to keep an eye on it and wondering what is the best was to measure it?

Is one was how many players are assigned to it from the NHL team?
Some ECHL teams will list contract status on their roster on their website, or you can just watch the transactions to see who is assigned and from where. Typically when it say the AHL team assigned the player they are on an AHL contract. When is says the NHL team reassigned them from the AHL to the ECHL they are NHL contracts, and when is says they were released to return they were an ECHL contracted player on an AHL try out. Although sometimes teams will accidently use the wrong wording in a press release.
 
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