The rest of the NHL season begins on Wednesday, February 25. For the Leafs that means a trip to Tampa on Tuesday to get ready to play the Lightning. That will be game 58 of the season and the 24 more remaining games will be packed into seven weeks, giving all of this a rate of slightly more than two days per game.

Trade Deadline

Aside from the inevitable disappointment when the Leafs still have some players left on March 6 at 3 pm ET, and haven't folded the franchise, there are a few other things to know about the trade deadline.

First, that is the date and time: March 6 at 3 pm. Midnight on March 5 is important as well, because that's the point at which the 23-man roster limit goes away for the rest of the season. This is to allow trades in advance of corresponding waivers moves or other trades at the last minute.

SPC Limit

The limit on contracts in the NHL is 50, with some junior players in the CHL who are on NHL deals exempt from that count. Teams looking to add at the deadline have to stay at 50 or less, so they are sometimes motivated to move out players in the AHL or lower down their NHL lineup to make space. Teams with extra space often profit from this. The Leafs have 46 right now. Vegas has 50, the Islanders 49 and several teams are at 48.

Salary Cap

The salary cap stays in place, so it's not a free-for-all.

Teams not using the LTIR pool to add players do so at a prorated amount based on the number of days (not games) left in the NHL season. If a team is using its LTIR to add, then the new player comes in at a full cap hit.

Given the unclear status of Chris Tanev at this time, it's impossible to say if the Leafs will be using LTIR at the deadline or not.

You will hear even the best members of the media repeat the false concept of adding an LTIR contract to make "more space". This is wrong, not how it works, and one can hope the playoff salary cap issue will occupy minds and this phony clever scheme will die off.

The playoff salary cap is not much of an impediment to playoff teams acquiring players. The cap applies only to the playing roster in any given game plus the "dead money" of buried contracts, buyouts and cap rollover from prior years. This is a much easier number to hit with a juiced up roster than most commentary has led people to expect.

The revised LTIR rules are one of the two real curbs on trade deadline acquisitions. To use the unfortunate Kevin Fiala as an example: he was hurt badly at the Olympics and is just on IR as of time of writing. The Kings don't yet need to put him on any sort of LTIR. When they do, and they will, they can either get the full value of his $7.875 million cap hit if he can be certified by the NHL and NHLPA to be out for the rest of the season and the playoffs, or they can use the in-season LTIR amount of $3.8 million (and change) to keep him playoff-eligible.

Choices of this nature in the next few days will determine how much teams can add and if they might be motivated to remove salary somewhere.

Salary Retention

The second blow to loading up comes from new salary retention rules.

A team trading a player can retain up to 50% of their salary, and more importantly, their cap hit. This rule has been revised making double retention trades effectively prohibited by introducing a time lag between the two deals.

This could also open up a market for higher salary players lower down the lineup that a playoff team needs to move to be able to afford the player they want to add.

Waivers and the AHL

The last day for waivers is March 6. After the trade deadline there are limits on the recall of players, and those limits are loose enough that it's rarely an issue for any team.

The AHL trade deadline is March 13, but the NHL deadline sets the AHL-eligibility of all players on NHL contracts at that time. They must be on the roster of the AHL team at 3 pm, and if they are recalled to play on the NHL team for the rest of the season, they count as one of the limited recalls allowed. The new "no-paper loans" rules will make it slightly more difficult for teams to set their AHL rosters as players loaned have to stay in the AHL in certain circumstances for at least one game.

Teams can add AHL players on try-out contracts and they are playoff eligible for the AHL.

Players on NHL contracts but in the AHL (or otherwise waivers exempt) when traded remain in the AHL and do not require waivers again.

Signing New Players

NHL teams can sign players – usually NCAA graduates – to NHL contracts after the deadline, and those deals can start in the current year, "burning" a year of the ELC.

CHL players exiting their leagues or about to can also be signed.

Players on AHL contracts can be signed to NHL deals and become NHL-eligible for playoffs either by remaining on the NHL roster or by clearing waivers to the AHL but being recalled under the post-deadline recall rules. There were a couple of goalie signings during the Olympics where the player was immediately waived to the AHL.

Players on an NHL team's reserve list (drafted players not signed to NHL contracts) can be added to NHL teams via contract after the deadline. They can also be added to the AHL either by NHL contract or try-out deals. This applies to any NCAA or CHL player signed, so a free agent cannot join the NHL team, but a drafted player off the reserve list can.

Free agents who have played in a league outside North America require entry waivers if signed before the deadline. Free agents who have played in the NHL this year (Jeff Skinner) can be signed, as can any player who has not played. This happens occasionally as someone tries to come back from retirement.

Trading Post Deadline

It is a persistent myth that no trades are allowed after the deadline. In fact there is nothing stopping a team from making a deal on March 7, save a good reason to do it. Any player traded after the deadline cannot play in the NHL for the rest of the regular season or the playoffs, and they are not eligible for AHL playoffs on their new team either.

Teams out of the playoffs early have occasionally started making moves before the playoffs are over, but it is not particularly common and the league doesn't like it.

This year, the last possible date for the SCF is June 21, just five days before the draft, meaning some trades during the playoffs are more likely.

That's a problem for June, though, and there's a lot that will happen before then, significantly less than rumoured, however.

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