One of the common things to watch for normally at this time of year is college free agency. Undrafted players that have been eliminated from the NCAA postseason quickly sign with NHL teams. Some sign a contract that begins in the next season while in recent years, more teams have shown a willingness to sign players to a contract that begins in the current season and therefore quickly passes through one of the salary-restrictive entry-level years. Teams have even shown an openness to doing so with their own drafted prospects such as Cale Makar last year or Charlie McAvoy and Brock Boeser back in 2017.
However, that option won’t be available to teams during the current suspension of the schedule. Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reports that while teams can sign college players to contracts now, they can only do so if the contract becomes effective on July 1st, meaning for the start of the 2020-21 season. Deals that begin now are off the table due to the uncertainty surrounding the schedule in the immediate future.
This means that over the days and weeks ahead, there should still be some activity on the college UFA market. While there is a chance that some players could be granted an extra year of eligibility, that would be restricted to tournament-bound teams, not ones that were already eliminated. As a result, there will still be some players on teams that wouldn’t have made the top-16 playdowns that will be seeking NHL contracts. Only this time, the playing field will be more leveled out with this current restriction of future contracts being the only ones allowed.
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