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NHL announces 2025 offer sheet compensation tiers

Originally posted on The Win Column | By Khalid Keshavjee | Last updated May 13, 2025 8:32 PM ET

While offer sheets are still remarkably rare in the NHL, last summer’s blockbuster offer sheet of Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway by the St. Louis Blues has shown that teams are still interested in using this option to acquire quality young stars.

What is an NHL offer sheet, and how does it work?

If you’re unfamiliar with how offer sheets work, Puckpedia has an excellent FAQ on the offer sheet process. Basically, teams can make a contract offer to a restricted free agent to sign with their team. Then, the team that currently owns the player’s rights can choose to either match the contract or not.

If they match the offer, they retain that player’s services under the contract they signed with the other team. If they decline to match the offer, that team receives compensation from the offering team based on the AAV of the contract. It’s important to note that the picks sent in compensation must be the team’s original draft picks, not picks acquired via trade or otherwise.

Only 13 NHL teams have the picks available to sign a player to an offer sheet of any value: the Anaheim Ducks, Boston Bruins, Calgary Flames, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Los Angeles Kings, Montral Canadiens, Nashville Predators, New Jersey Devils, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Seattle Kraken, and Utah Mammoth.

The compensation tiers change each year, but a major one is the average player salary in the previous year. It’s worth noting that the AAV is calculated as the lesser of either the contract term or five years. If it is a deal longer than five years, the AAV is divided by five instead of the deal length, which increases the contract value for compensation. As reported by Elliotte Friedman, compensation tiers have increased for 2025.

2024 versus 2025 offer sheet compensation tiers

2021 AAV Tier	2025 AAV Tier	Upper AAV Change	Compensation
$1 – $1,511,701	$1 – $1,544,424	$32,723	No Compensation
$1,511,701.01 – $2,290,457	$1,544,424.01 – $2,340,037	$49,580	1 Third-Round Pick
$2,290,457.01 – $4,580,917	$2,340,037.01 – $4,680,076	$99,159	1 Second-Round Pick
$4,580,917.01 – $6,871,374	$4,680,076.01 – $7,020,113	$148,742	1 First-Round Pick 1 Third-Round Pick
$6,871,374.01 – $9,161,834	$7,020,113.01 – $9,360,153	$198,319	1 First-Round Pick 1 Second-Round Pick 1 Third-Round Pick
$9,161,834.01- $11,452,294	$9,360,153.01 – $11,700,192	$247,898	2 First-Round Picks 1 Second-Round Pick 1 Third-Round Pick
$11,452,294.01- ∞	$11,700,192.01- ∞		4 First-Round Picks

Which players could be targets of offer sheets in 2025?

Offer sheets almost never happen, for a multitude of reasons. However, when they do happen, they are usually a very big deal and have major impacts on the teams involved. One of the most interesting offer sheet stories is with Scott Stevens, who was involved in multiple offer sheets in the 1990s.

While there are tons of players who are technically available for an offer sheet, there are only a handful that are likely to receive one. This is because teams are unlikely to offer sheet players at the bottom end of the list as they are not worth any more than what they are currently being paid, and most teams aren’t willing to send three or four picks, particularly four first-round picks, to another team in exchange for a star young player. Odds are they will find a comparable player in the draft.

The names that are intriguing this year are Gabriel Vilardi, Evan Bouchard, JJ Peterka, and Matthew Knies. All of whom could be snagged by a team like the Calgary Flames this summer.

There are many, many more intriguing names on the list, and with cap space being hard to come by, we may see more offer sheets this season than we have in a very long time.

Free agency 2025 could be a lot of fun.

This article first appeared on The Win Column and was syndicated with permission.

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