heilongjetsfan
Registered User
- Jul 4, 2011
- 3,591
- 1,578
Two-way contract means *only* that the player has one salary for when he is in NHL and other salary for when he is in AHL. The same player being or not being waivers-exempt isn't dependent of his contract but on the waivers eligibility rules in the CBA.
Waivers-exemption is mostly dependent on the amount of years the player has been playing under an ELC/in the NHL (but there is also a hard cap on the games played in NHL). In Heinola's case, they are not thinking his usage on the terms that he will (as a player who signed at 18) lose his waivers eligibility after 160 games. He is *not* going to be sent down in season 2021-22.
Really, when you consider he still may return to Finland, or play some AHL in the next 2 years, he could conceivably take even longer than that to lose his waiver eligibility. Which, as you say, is probably a moot point because at the rate he's going, he's probably on our 2nd pair by the time he hits 160gp.