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Saturday, October 3, 2026 at 5:20 PM ET

NHL Trade Deadline and Free Agency Explained: Retention, LTIR and Offer Sheets

How the NHL trade deadline and July 1 free agency work, plus no-trade clauses, salary retention, LTIR, offer sheets and how hockey news usually breaks.

Updated 2026-10-03.

In this guide
  1. The trade deadline
  2. July 1 free agency
  3. No-trade and no-movement clauses
  4. Salary retention
  5. LTIR at a conceptual level
  6. Offer sheets
  7. How hockey news breaks
  8. Related reading

Hockey’s two biggest transaction days are the trade deadline in late winter and the opening of free agency on July 1. Both are big enough events in Canada that networks build day-long broadcasts around them. The NHL’s hard salary cap shapes nearly every deal, so understanding a few cap tools makes the headlines much easier to follow.

The trade deadline

The NHL trade deadline is set each season and typically falls in early March, with about a quarter of the regular season left. Contenders load up for the playoffs, while teams out of the race sell pending free agents and veterans for picks and prospects.

Common deadline deals include:

  • Rentals. A contender acquires a player whose contract expires at season’s end. He helps for the playoff run and may never play another game for that team.
  • Hockey trades. Player-for-player deals aimed at fixing a need on both sides.
  • Futures for picks. Sellers collect draft picks, often with conditions tied to how far the buying team goes in the playoffs or whether the player re-signs.

After the deadline, teams can still sign free agents and claim players off waivers, but trading stops until after the season. Players acquired after the deadline face limits on playoff eligibility, which is one reason teams try to finish their business before it.

July 1 free agency

NHL free agency opens on July 1, shortly after the draft. At that moment, players whose contracts have expired can sign with any team.

There are two main types of free agents:

  • Unrestricted free agents (UFAs) can sign anywhere. In general, a player becomes unrestricted when he reaches age 27 or has accumulated seven accrued seasons, whichever comes first, once his contract expires.
  • Restricted free agents (RFAs) are younger players whose rights stay with their team, as long as the team makes a qualifying offer to keep those rights.

Teams can sign their own pending free agents to extensions during the season, and the team that holds a player’s rights can offer a longer contract than any other team can. That advantage is a big reason many stars re-sign before ever reaching July 1.

No-trade and no-movement clauses

Veteran contracts often include clauses that limit where a player can be sent:

  • No-trade clause (NTC): the player cannot be traded without his consent. Many are modified, meaning the player submits a list of teams he would accept or refuse.
  • No-movement clause (NMC): stronger. The player cannot be traded, placed on waivers or sent to the minors without his consent.

These clauses matter most at the deadline. A seller may want to move a veteran, but if he has an NMC or full NTC, he has to approve the destination. Reports that a player “has waived his no-trade clause” usually mean a deal is close.

Salary retention

Because the NHL has a hard cap, buyers often lack the room to add a player’s full salary midseason. Salary retention solves that. The trading team keeps paying part of the player’s salary and carries that share against its own cap for the rest of the contract.

Key limits on retention:

  • A team can retain up to 50% of a player’s salary.
  • A team can carry only a limited number of retained contracts at one time.

Sometimes a third team joins the trade just to retain more salary in exchange for a draft pick. These three-way “broker” deals have become a familiar part of deadline day.

LTIR at a conceptual level

Long-term injured reserve (LTIR) gives teams cap relief when a player is expected to miss significant time. If a player is placed on LTIR, his team can exceed the salary cap by up to roughly his cap hit to replace him.

A few points to keep in mind:

  • The player has to be out for a minimum number of games and days set by the rules.
  • LTIR does not remove the player’s cap hit. It allows a team to spend above the cap while he is out.
  • When the player is ready to return, the team must get back under the cap first.

LTIR has drawn criticism when a contender uses it at the deadline and the injured player returns for the playoffs. The league and players have discussed changes to how LTIR and the playoffs interact, so expect details here to keep evolving.

Offer sheets

An offer sheet is a contract offer from one team to another team’s restricted free agent. If the player signs it, his current team has a set number of days to either match the offer and keep him, or decline and receive draft picks as compensation.

The compensation scale is based on the contract’s average annual value. The higher the salary, the more picks the signing team gives up, ranging from a single mid-round pick up to multiple first-round picks for the biggest offers. The thresholds are adjusted each year.

Offer sheets are rare in hockey compared with the NBA, but they are a recurring summer storyline because one can force a team into a difficult cap decision.

How hockey news breaks

Hockey news has a strong Canadian media presence, and trades often surface in a specific way:

  • Insiders first. A national insider posts that a trade is done or close, sometimes before the players involved have been told.
  • Waiting on the league. NHL trades are not official until the league’s Central Registry processes them, so you may see “trade call scheduled” or “pending league approval.”
  • Deadline-day coverage. Canadian networks run all-day broadcasts on deadline day and July 1, and insiders break much of their news there and on X at the same time.
  • Team announcements. Teams confirm after the league approves the trade, often with retention details in the release.

Watch for the phrase “pending a trade call” late on deadline day. A trade agreed before the deadline can still be finalized slightly after it, as long as the paperwork was submitted in time.

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