Quote:
Originally Posted by redmile04
Do we not burn a year of his contact if he plays? Or is that only for college players, i am going back to when Johnny Gaudreau played 1 game and it burned a year off his contract.. i could be missing something...
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It's based on the player's age when he signed his contract. Parekh signed shortly after the draft as an 18 year-old, so his contract can slide 2 seasons or until he has played 10 NHL games (regular season and/or playoff).
If a player signs as a 19 year-old, the contract can slide for 1 season. If a player is over 20 when he signs, there is no slide and the clock starts ticking immediately. If a player signs after March 1, he can sign a contract that starts the following year, but still play in the AHL on a tryout contract (this is what a lot of college players do), but he can also sign a contract that starts immediately (which is what Gaudreau and Suniev both did) and burns off the first year of the contract even though it's only valid for a short part of the season.
We often think of it as a college thing because college players tend to be over 20 when they sign their first contracts, however, a young college player can still have their contract slide. When Makar signed with the Avs, it was considered a 19 year-old contract and could have slid if he had played fewer than 10 games. He ended up playing exactly 10 games in the playoffs that season, so his contract didn't slide.