Retirements/Player Signed in Europe
Retirement to most PTHL players will be held to the end of the current seasonr .Players who retire midway through the NHL season (see:Ziggy Palffy) will be removed from the sim at the point of retirement. Players who return from retirement are immediatly placed on the unsigned list and teams are given chances to bid.
Players who have signed in Europe midway through the season will remain on their PTHL's teams roster until the Europe-PTHL Transfer window (Offseason) opens. Any players that sign in Europe while the transfer window is open will be removed from the sim immediately. Any players returning to the PTHL from Europe will be immediately placed on the unsigned list.


FONT face=Arial size=4>Prospect Callups
Prospects who wish to be called up by GMs will be created immedatly, their creation depends on the players' stats and expereince at the NHL level.Their ratings will be based on a rating skill that uses Hockey's Future as a reference.
 

Waivers
Any player who is 25 years old or older, will have to clear waivers if he is sent to his farm club. This process will pertain to both preseason and during season play. Players who are 18-24 years old can be called up and sent to the Farm team without having to clear waivers. Once a player is placed on the waiver wire, he will remain there for 48 hours giving Gms a chance to claim him. If two or more teams claim a player, the team with the highest waiver priority (determined by worst record) will get the player. If a team claims a player, he must be put on the pro roster; otherwise, he remains on waivers. If a player is not claimed in the 48 hour time period, he will go to the farm team. After the regular season is over, a team may send any player to the minor leagues without having to go through the waiver process. The league reserves the right to announce to all GMs when a player is put on waivers. Any player accidentally put on waivers (his team sends him down without realizing he was over 26) by his team must remain on waivers for the 48 hour period with no exceptions. Refer to the player vitals page for players' ages and keep in mind that the GM editor will inform you if you are placing someone on waivers. Also, any players over the age of 26 on the farm can be taken by any of the three teams with the highest waiver priority. If a player is taken, the fourth team on the waiver priority list can now take a player off any farm team with no concequences. A maximum of only three players per farm team can be taken per season.
 

Released Players 
Players that are released from their team become free agents. For the period of one week, the player will take bids. Highest bidder gets the player signed at that salary. After one week the player can be signed on a first come, first served basis at the league minimum salary - $450,000 for For 1st round draft picks it's $300,000 for 2 years, $250,000 for 2 years for 2nd round drafts picks. Releasing players is up to the discresion of the GM, however to release a player, the player must be paid 25% of their current salary. This buyout doesn't count against the cap, but rather will be deducted from "Current Funds" on the finance page. (ex. Player A makes a million to be bought out for 250 000)


Trading 
Trading is encouraged. Only players, money (from franchise funds) and draft choices may be traded. The FHL program tracks four years worth of draft choices for every team through all 7 rounds of the draft. Any of these picks may be dealt.Any trade that seems to be overbalanced in one direction or the other may be subject to review by the Board of Directors and/or Commissioner.

Mid Season Rerates
A committee of Gms will be assigned (volunteer) to rerate all rookies who after the midway point of the NHL season (all teams have played 41 games) will be given new ratings if they have played 20 or more games. The rookies ratings will then be reset back to ratings package chosen to be used at the end of the season. The ratings will be done using a formula provided by the ratings package. In addition, each team will have an additional midseason rerate for any player 25 years or under. The expected time frame for midseason rerates is the all star break.

Prospect Creation
Prospects can only be signed off the prospect list if they have played 1 game in a North American Professional League (AHL/ECHL/NHL/etc.). All Entry contracts are to be 1 year more than the NHL's counterpart entry contract to avoid players being underpaid in their secnod contract. (This in accordance to the NHL having a standard 3 year entry level contract for all rookies).

Free Agency

Free Agent Types
There are two kind of Free Agents - Restricted Free Agents (RFAs) and Unrestricted Free Agents (UFAs).  Unrestricted Free Agency begins for every PTHL player at age 28 or having served 6 years in the league. Restricted Free Agents are those players who are 27 or younger or have served less than 6 years in the NHL at the end of the season.  Either free agent type can be offered contracts throughout the year (a contract extension). In addition, RFA's can be tendered an offer (called a qualifying offer (NHL+10%)) for a new contract at the end of the season by the end of the regular season. Teams that own Restricted Free Agents have both right of first refusal (i.e. we don't want to resign you or offer you a new deal), and the right to match any offer they receive.
 

Off-Season Free Agent Processes
Phase I - RFA Qualifying Offers & Offer Sheets
Phase II- RFA Matching & Compensation
Phase III - Unrestricted Free Agency

Phase I - RFA Qualifying Offers & Offer Sheets
Each GM can make offers to RFAs from any team (or teams) around the league, they can also make offers to any of their own RFAs. Once again - this means unlimited qualifying offers on your own players, only four on other teams' (no more than two offers per team roster). This is the NHL equivalent of signing a player to an offer sheet. REMEMBER - these are not done deals, these just allow you to retain the rights to your RFA players, and allow you to have the right to match any offer on your own RFAs. These Qualifying Offers will be sent to the Commissioner. The Commissioner will serve to ensure that the player signs the offer sheet on the best deal (not necessarily the highest dollar value or longest contract), and then his own team will be able to match that offer, if they so choose.
    Offers must be for at least 1 year and no more than 4 years in length. Players can & will sign offer sheets that extend past their UFA age if the contract compensates them appropriately.  The PTHL qulifying offer is the players current NHL salary which can be checked at www.nhlscap.com + 10% To gauruntee the RFA resigning with the current team the team can offer a NHL+15% salary and the player will not be eligable from offers from other PTHL teams. As of season 3, teams are only allowed to guaruntee 2 RFAs, but can sign all of their RFAs to qualifying offers. The players who have a qualifying offer can be bid on by other teams, but the original team has the right to match the highest offer received. .
    Any RFAs who do not receive qualifying offers from their own team will become UFAs, meaning that their teams do not receive compensation if they are signed by another team. All offers & offer sheet MUST be submitted by the deadline set by the league.

Phase II - RFA Offer Match & Declination Compensation
The Commissioner will send out a list to all the GM's of their offers on other players and the highest bids on their players. The GMs will then have three days to decide whether to match the offers, decline the offers and take compensation. GMs must make their intentions known by the required deadline to retain rights to the players.

Each RFA offer allows a GM two options:
1. Match and retain player for contract offered
2. Decline offer and accept compensation

If a team makes an offer to one of its' own players, and there are no other offers on that player, the team will have the option to have the player sign the qualifying offer or can offer a guarunteed contract offer (from 1-4 years). Or any RFA aged player may decide to hold-out and refuse to sign the qualifying offer. At this time, the team can decide to renegotiate with the player or trade his rights. If a hold-out moves into following season, any contract negotiation will apply to the four yearly slots.

NEW 2005 CONTRACT VALUE COMPENSATION:

Player Compensation - Teams may not players as appropriate compensation. ALL player compensation packages MUST be approved by the league office. If such a deal does not meet league approval and teams continually cannot come to agreement, the league will step in and view both offers and make a decision on the appropriate compensation via Arbitration.....
--Clubs owing one (1) draft selection must have it available in the next draft.
-- Clubs owing two (2) draft selections in different rounds must have them available in the next draft.
-- Clubs owing three (3) draft selections in different rounds must have them available in the next draft.
-- Clubs owing two (2) draft selections in the same round, must have them available in the next three (3) drafts.
-- Clubs owing three (3) draft selections in the same round must have them available in the next four (4) drafts, and so on.
When a Club owes two (2) or more draft selections in the same round, the signing Club does not elect the years in which such selections shall be awarded to the Prior Club; rather, the selections next available will be transferred to the Prior Club (i.e., a Club that owes two (2) selections has them available in the next two (2) drafts – that is when they are transferred).

Phase III - Unrestricted Free Agency
As with the NHL, the PTHL will feature Unrestricted Free Agents. These are players who are 28 (as of July 1st) and older or have served 6 or more years in the NHL at the end of their contract, have the option to sign with any team they wish. The first stage allows teams to resign up to 2 UFAs to their team for a contract worth the players current NHL contract + 20%. (Multi year loyalty contracts come with a 82 game No Trade Clause, while single year loyalty contracts are only a 41 game No Trade Clause. The NTCs can be bought out for 30 million dollars).Teams may also submit offers to any UFAs in the league, whether they are on their team or not. [Presentations will be important as they designate the players desired, roles needing to be filled on the team & budget available. Any team submitting a presentation will be guaranteed to sign a player that can provide help for the team] The Commissioner will then reviewed the offers and use a randon numer generator to decide which offer is in the players best interest to sign. An email or forum posting will announce to the league that a certain player has signed a contract with a team, listing the new contract, team, and salary. Commissioner will assign numbers to each team involved this will decide the best offer for the player (In the case of a tie, the higher total amount of money will win [ex. a 1 year deal worth 4 million will lose to a 3 year deal worth 2 mil per year]). All players signed during the open market period come with a 41 game No Trade Clause regardless of contract length. It is also possible that a player will not sign a contract during this period because they do not receive an acceptable offer - they are then added to the pool of unsigned players and may be bid on at any time once the regular season begins.
Note: The current PTHL climate moves free agency from a bidding war to a player movement stage.  There is no max offer that can be offered to any UFA. But no team will be signing a majority of players just based on contract offers. A teams financial state will be analyzed when such offers are submitted. Overly large scale bidding and contract offers on several players from financially unstable franchises will be considered null & void. Players will seriously consider ALL these factors: financial health, franchise prestige, proposed role, presentation.

Unsigned List
The PTHL will always have a pool of players not belonging to any team that can be signed by any team during the season known as the unsigned list. These can be players used to fill your farm team or can play on your pro team if you are dealing with a ton of injuries. The process for signing players off this list will go as follows: 1. The first GM sends in his bid to the player they want. Their offer is not revealed to anyone but the commish. This opens up a 3 day period where other Gms who may want the player have a chance to offer their own contract by emailing the commish. Each Gm may only send in one bid and at the end of the bidding period, the team that offered the best contract will get that player.