Offer sheets haven’t overtaken offseason discourse in three years now. Only the Canadiens and Hurricanes have gotten in on the little-used RFA acquisition technique in recent years, with Montreal unsuccessfully trying to steal star center Sebastian Aho from Carolina in 2019 and the Canes gaining 2018 third-overall pick Jesperi Kotkaniemi via an unmatched one-year, $6.1MM offer.
There are some RFAs this summer that seem less-than-likely to re-sign with their current clubs, namely Hurricanes forward Martin Nečas and Canucks defenseman Filip Hronek. While both are expected to change hands via trade if they do move teams this summer, they’re both eligible to sign offer sheets if a team presents one.
Thresholds are derived from the league’s average salary, which jumped over six percent from last season. As such, the goalposts for each draft pick compensation tier have moved toward the higher-value end of the field, with PuckPedia confirming this year’s full breakdown:
| AAV | Draft picks required |
| $1.51MM or less | No compensation |
| $1.51MM to $2.29MM | Third-round pick |
| $2.29MM to $4.58MM | Second-round pick |
| $4.58MM to $6.87MM | First and third-round picks |
| $6.87MM to $9.16MM | First, second and third-round picks |
| $9.16MM to $11.45MM | Two firsts, a second and third-round picks |
| Over $11.45MM | Four first-round picks |
It is important to note that any team trying to sign a player to an applicable offer sheet must use their own draft picks for compensation, not acquired ones. That rules several teams out already from signing high-profile RFAs unless they were to work to reacquire their picks before submitting the contract.
An offer sheet’s average annual value is also calculated slightly differently than a standard contract. If the contract is longer than five years, the total salary is still divided by five to determine the AAV. That would mean a seven-year contract worth $8MM per season ($56MM total value) would carry an AAV of $11.2MM for the purposes of offer sheet compensation. For more information about the details of offer sheets, check out CapFriendly’s FAQ.
Additionally, with the league’s average salary rebounding past its pre-pandemic figure, the arbitration award required for a team to walk away from a deal has increased for the first time since 2020. That number is now roughly $4.74MM, per PuckPedia, jumping around $200K. If an arbitrator awards a one- or two-year deal with an AAV less than $4.74MM, a team must sign the contract.
Wow, the compensation in the NHL is crazy high. It’s nothing like the other 3 major sports.
The RFA tiers are not representative of NHL salaries at all. The mechanism only gets used twice a decade or so