With the NCAA men’s hockey season making a pit stop at conference tournaments before releasing the final NCAA Tournament bracket, there starts to be talks of not only drafted prospects, but undrafted collegiate players, when it comes to who will ink contracts coming out of the season. This conversation also occurs with undrafted players in the Canadian Hockey League, or CHL. Since many people tend to have questions about how the process of NHL teams signing undrafted free agents works, let’s break it down by looking at how NHL teams draft and sign players.

When Can a Player Be Drafted?

Referencing this article from lines.com:

“Any North American player who turns 18 by September 15 and does not turn 20 by December 31 is eligible for the draft. Any non-North American player can be drafted at any age if they are at least 18 by September 15. If a player is 18, they must declare themselves eligible, but if a player turns 19 by September 15th, they are automatically eligible for selection in the draft.”

When Can a Team Sign an Undrafted Player?

There is an easy answer to this question. According to the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, or CBA, you can sign any player who has gone undrafted in as little as one NHL Entry Draft to an Entry-Level Contract, or ELC. For instance, following the 2016 NHL Draft, the Calgary Flames invited Rouyn-Noranda Huskies defenseman Philippe Myers to their development camp after going undrafted in his first year of draft eligibility. He was then invited by the Flyers to attend their NHL pre-season camp, and impressed them enough that they signed him to an ELC on September 21st, prior to the camp ending and before the next QMJHL season started. Some scouting people said if he had not signed that ELC with the Flyers, he may have been a potential first round pick in the next draft.

Myers was dealt this past offseason to the Nashville Predators by the Flyers, along with Nolan Patrick (who was then flipped to the Vegas Golden Knights for Cody Glass), in exchange for Ryan Ellis. Other players that have taken this route include Nicholas Aubé-Kubel (PHI), Yegor Zamula (PHI), and Dylan Coghlan, who signed with Vegas after two years of being undrafted. The same rules that have been mentioned here also goes for all college athletes as well.

What Determines the Signability of a Player?

If a player is not drafted by age of 20, that player becomes an unrestricted free agent. A player not signed by drafted team within two years can re-enter the NHL Entry Draft if they are still eligible. If they are not eligible, they will become an unrestricted free agent. For a team that drafts a player who chose to play hockey at the collegiate level, the team has 30 days to sign him following their departure from college. If a player is drafted a second time, they can not re-enter the draft. If a player has entered the draft twice and not been selected, they then become free agents regardless of age. A non-North American player can not be signed unless they are drafted first.

Going back to the mention of how a team has 30 days to sign a player following their departure from college, there is one major occurrence of that right now. Former third-round selection in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft, Jack McBain, is unlikely to sign with the team that drafted him, the Minnesota Wild, and Wild General Manager Bill Guerin will likely trade him prior to March 21st in exchange for a selection to a team that he would want to sign with or as an asset in a larger trade.

Now, Why Has There Been a Major Influx of Signings Since the Beginning of March?

Well, this is due to a combination of all of the mentioned points, and some other additional notes. The rule of thumb with regards to players signing entry-level contracts as veteran NCAA players or overage CHL players are as follows.

If the player plays in the NCAA and their rights are not held by a NHL club, they are free to sign an entry-level contract and depart for that club at the earliest, following their third season. This follows off of the previously noted rule of how drafted collegiate athletes have 30 days to sign with their team once they are officially done with college, along with the rule regarding re-entry into the draft if the player had not been selected in previous years.

For skaters who spent time in the CHL, there are two ways they could be eligible to sign. The first of two ways to be eligible is reaching the age of 20. The second of which is by playing four seasons in the CHL prior to signing. This can be attached to the rules from before, making complications that could result in a player who was drafted, didn’t sign with the team that drafted him, couldn’t re-enter the draft, and stayed in the CHL until he could sign, like former Florida Panthers fifth-round selection in 2019, Henrik Rybinski, who signed with the Washington Capitals.

No matter when players hit either of those marks for the CHL eligibility rules, they cannot sign a contract until March 1 of the hockey calendar, which is the resultant of the increase in NHL contracts for undrafted free agents starting that day.

I hope this article helped increase your knowledge on why the NHL saw an increase in undrafted free agents signing on March 1st.

SEF