Entry-level slides and how they will apply to the Canucks’ quartet of junior prospects

The Vancouver Canucks made two announcements regarding prospects Riley Patterson and Gabriel Chiarot this week.

First, they announced that the two of them were among the team’s first round of training camp cuts, re-assigning both to their respective junior clubs.

Then, they announced that each had been signed to a three-year entry-level contract.

The signings bring the Canucks to 47 of a maximum 50 total NHL contracts allowed at one time. Except, that’s not really true…at least not yet. That’s because Patterson and Chiarot’s new contracts – along with those contracts already signed earlier in the summer by Braeden Cootes and Aleksei Medvedev – are what we call “slide eligible.”

What does that mean? Don’t worry, we’re here to explain.

Entry-level contracts are a special kind of contract that most players sign as their first NHL contract. Every player who signs their first deal prior to the age of 25 must sign an ‘ELC.’ The rules surrounding ELCs are different from those of other contracts, as they have a maximum value and are also eligible for performance bonuses.

And, depending on the age of the player attached to them, some ELCs can ‘slide.’

When an ELC slides, it essentially puts the contract’s term on hold for a year (or two). The player still gets paid any signing bonuses or anything like that, but a slid contract doesn’t start burning term until it stops sliding. In other words, a player on a new three-year ELC who has their contract slide will still have three years remaining on their deal when the next season starts.

In order to be ‘slide eligible,’ a player must be 18 or 19 years old in any given season of their ELC, with the date cut-off being September 15 of the year they signed the contract.

Beyond that, all an 18- or 19-year-old player has to do to have their contract slide is to NOT play ten NHL games. Familiar with that whole ‘nine games’ maximum for junior prospects auditioning at the NHL level? This is where that comes from.

Typically, slide rules apply to those prospects playing CHL hockey, but it’s not exclusive to them. A player on an ELC playing in Europe is still eligible to slide, as is any teenager playing in the AHL, rare as that may be. But it’s mostly juniors, as is the case for the Canucks’ new quartet of slide-eligible prospects.

With all three of Patterson, Chiarot, and Medvedev already re-assigned to their respective junior teams, it is safe to assume that all three will have their contracts slide. That means that, despite playing throughout the entire 2025-26 season while technically under contract, each will still have three years of term remaining come the start of the 2026-27 season.

There’s a weird little side effect with cap hits that happen when a contract slides. Signing bonuses get paid out at their scheduled times, regardless, but are only attached to the first three calendar years of the ELC. So, when a player with signing bonuses has their contract slide, those extra years of term end up without signing bonuses, and thus have slightly lower cap hits.

It’s nothing that’s going to alter the budget. But if, for example, Medvedev spends the next two seasons back in the OHL and has his contract slide for both, he’ll be paid a $97,500 signing bonus in each of those years, but still retain three years of term on his ELC. That means the last two years of his ELC will not feature those $97,500 payments, and thus his cap hit will be $97,500 lower in those last two years.

But the ‘freezing’ of term is the far more important feature here, as is the fact that ‘slid’ contracts do not count toward a team’s 50 maximum contracts.

So, with Patterson, Chiarot, and Medvedev already slid down to the juniors, the Canucks are actually at 44 of 50 contracts for the moment.

That would go down to 43 of 50 contracts if Cootes, too, is ultimately re-assigned to junior. But he’s a bit of a unique situation that we’ll talk more about later in the article.

There’s also some distinction to be had about the ‘slidiness’ of these four Canucks prospects.

Chiarot, Medvedev, and Cootes all signed their ELCs in their first summer after being drafted, all at the age of 18. Heck, Medvedev actually signed at 17, and just turned 18 a couple of weeks ago. As a result, all three will be eligible to have their contract slide for both the 2025-26 season and the 2026-27 season – again, so long as they do not hit 10 NHL games played (playoffs included) in either of those seasons.

Patterson, on the other hand, was drafted last year in the 2024 Entry Draft and waited a whole year before signing his ELC. He’s already 19 and will therefore only be slide eligible for the upcoming 2025-26 season. After that, he’s on the books.

That brings us to Cootes. You’ve probably already heard some speculation that, with Cootes turning so many heads in camp, the Canucks are considering keeping him up for a nine-game audition. When folks bring that up, whether they realize it or not, they’re talking about slide eligibility. Those nine games are the maximum that Cootes can play this year before his contract becomes ineligible to slide, and loses a year of slidable term. This is often referred to as ‘burning a year’ of a contract.

Of course, the Canucks are allowed to keep Cootes up for Game 10 and onward – they can keep him up for the entire year if they like. But as soon as he hits that tenth game, he can no longer slide this year, and Year One of his ELC has officially begun.

Whether that comes to pass with Cootes or not remains to be seen as of this writing. But his potential slide eligibility for next season, 2026-27, is also a little interesting.

The full agreement between all interested parties has yet to be reached, but the NHL intends to allow each team the ability to assign one 19-year-old prospect to their AHL team per season, regardless of that player’s junior status. Previously, someone like Cootes would have had to wait until age 20 to play in the AHL; it was NHL or bust. But as of next year, it’s sounding like the Canucks will have the option, and they’d almost certainly choose Cootes as their designated AHL teen – if he’s not straight-up in the NHL already.

Because that agreement isn’t signed yet, we don’t know exactly how this new rule will effect slide eligibility. As it stands now, any 18- or 19-year-old who winds up playing in the AHL – those not drafted from North American junior leagues, in other words – are still slide-eligible, so long as they do not hit that 10-NHL-game threshold.

If nothing changes there, Cootes could theoretically play the entirety of the 2026-27 season for the Abbotsford Canucks and still have three years remaining on his ELC as of the start of the 2027-28 campaign. That said, we suspect there will be a change, and that any 19-year-old assigned to the AHL through this new exemption will probably be ruled not slide-eligible. Only time will tell.

That, we think, is a fairly thorough rundown of what it means for an entry-level contract to slide, and specifically what it means for the Canucks and their quartet of junior prospects. If there’s anything we missed, or any questions you still have, don’t hesitate to drop a comment.

Or, hey, you could always slide into our DMs, too.