Every year at this time the NHL calculates the average player salary of the current season which sets the offer sheet compensation tiers for the coming offseason. Compensation for successful offer sheet deals is draft picks. There are no compensatory draft picks for signing coaches or GMs any longer.

The tiers this year are:

  • up to $1.38649 million requires no compensation
  • From the above to $2.100742 million requires one 3rd
  • The above to $4.201488 million requires one 2nd
  • To $6.30223 million requires one 1st and one 3rd
  • To $8.402975 million requires one 1st, one 2nd and one 3rd
  • To $10.50372 million requires two 1sts, one 2nd and one 3rd
  • Any amount over the above requires four 1sts./

CapFriendly’s page, linked in their tweet, shows you the teams who have the picks to make those deals as of now. Only Florida and Tampa can’t do an offer sheet over the maximum. It’s Montréal’s turn in the offer sheet war with Carolina, so they are set, with the ability to do any level of deal. So are the Canes, as it happens.

Some rules to remember:

  1. NHL teams cannot negotiate with a player in regards to an offer sheet until July 12 this year.  The player cannot sign that offer sheet until July 13.
  2. If the player (but not the team) elects arbitration, he cannot sign an offer sheet.
  3. The team submitting the offer sheet has to have all of the required compensation picks, and they have to be their own picks. They have to be picks for the next draft (so 2023) unless they are required to have two picks of  the same round. Then they can have two of the next three year’s picks to offer.
  4. And now for the calculation of the AAV to determine the threshold:

The compensation limits are the AAV of the offer sheet averaged over the length of the contract to an upper limit of five years. Here is an example to explain this: If Patrik Laine signs an offer sheet for 7 years at 10 million, that seems at first look to require two first-round picks, one second and one third.

But that $70 million has to be divided by 5, so it’s actually an AAV of $14 million, and is a top-tier, four first-round picks compensation offer sheet.

Now, you’re ready to go make up offer sheet scenarios. Here’s a handy list of all the RFAs for you. Note: the list includes RFAs of the 10.2(c) variety, who are not eligible to receive an offer sheet.

Remember, it’s not a team “offer sheeting” a player, it’s a player signing a deal for a new SPC with another team. The player is the decision maker with all the control in these situations.