Explaining waiver exemption and one-way or two-way contracts…

With a lot of signings coming in over the past couple weeks and the next couple of months. Everybody looks at a prospects contract and immediately looks for a one-way or two-way contract. A lot of assumption happens that if a player signs a one-way contract, that means the prospect will make the NHL roster this coming season, and a two-way contract means they can move up or down from NHL to AHL. This isn’t actually the case with every contract, let’s explain the two differences of contracts and what it really means.

The one-way contract is a NHL contract that if a player signs a one-year contract, they will make that amount of money, whether playing in the NHL or the AHL. So, yes the team would rather have this player in the NHL, but it doesn’t mean they have to stay in the NHL. They are still able to be re-assigned to the AHL and just because a player signs a one-year contract doesn’t mean he has to pass through waivers when sent down either. We’ll get to waiver exemption in a few minutes.

The two-way contract is a NHL contract that if a player signs a two-year contract, they will make a certain amount in the NHL and a significantly less amount in the AHL. Again this does not mean that all two-way contract will be re-assigned before any one-way contract. These amounts are also prorated, so they will only count against the cap hit for the amount of time he plays in the NHL. Not the entire contract length and amount.

*

WAIVERS

First things first, CapFriendly has an excellent ‘Waiver Calculator’ that shows a list of Waiver-Exempt players and explains the tool and what the ages are for players at the time of their contract signing. You just find your player you are looking for and click on them and there exemption information pops up below. This is the best way to find out if a player who has signed will need waivers or not.

Let’s explain what and how this is determined and, of course, there will be a chart.

Waiver exemption is determined by a either the number of years a player is under contract or the amount of games played. Once a player hits a specific number of games played based on their age and the amount of years since his first NHL contract, he will lose exemption and must then pass through waivers. Below is a chart to make it pretty easy to understand when a player is exempt from waivers.

*

So with this information, let’s go over a few players who have signed in the past few days.

Colin Miller (BOS) – two-year, one-way contract – Signing Age: 21, three seasons completed, 42 games played. Miller is Waiver Eligible due to enough seasons completed as a skater, three seasons or 80 games required.

Richard Bachman (VAN) – one-year, two-way contract – Signing Age: 22, seven seasons completed, 43 games played. Bachman is Waiver Eligible due to enough seasons completed as a goalie, four seasons or 60 games required.

Alan Quine (NYI) – two-year, one-way contract – Signing Age: 20, three seasons completed, 12 games played. Quine is Waiver Eligible due to enough seasons completed as a skater, three seasons or 80 games required.

Mike Halmo (TBL) – one-year, two-way contract – Signing Age: 21, four seasons completed, 20 games played. Halmo is Waiver Eligible due to enough season completed as a skater, three seasons or 80 games required.

Jesse Puljujarvi (EDM) – three-year, entry-level contract – Signing Age: 18, zero seasons completed, zero games played. Puljujarvi is Waiver Exempt due to not enough seasons or games played, five seasons or 160 games required.

As you can see, Halmo and Bachman are signed to two-way deals, but still have to go through the waiver process, which means they can’t just be re-assigned without being claimed by another team. An NHL team may not be willing to lose these guys for nothing through waivers, so if they make the team out of training camp they have a better chance of staying with the team over another player who is waiver exempt.

I wasn’t able to find a one-way contract who was still waiver exempt, but I did find a few two-way contracts that are eligible for waivers, which is what I think a lot of people just assume that automatically a two-way contract can be moved up or down without passing through waivers first.

If you come across a one-way contract with waiver exemption, let me know on twitter or in the comments below.

***

***

Feel free to leave comments, questions or concerns below, have fun playing the game of Fantasy Hockey.

Paul Zwambag
@zwambag