Chapter 11: Prospects

[OTHL]

CHAPTER 11: PROSPECTS

11.1 General Information
Each OTHL team has a prospect list on the leagues website. Players on the prospect list have their rights owned by that particular team but have yet been signed to a pro contract. Teams do not pay anything to these prospects. Teams may have any player removed from their list at no cost. After a prospect has been released the player is no longer considered a prospect but rather an unrestricted free agent (UFA) and can be signed by anyone (provided he qualifies to be signed, see section 16.3).

11.2. Signing A Prospect
Prospects can be signed to an OTHL contract at any time during the season. For information regarding the structure of a rookie contract, please see section 15.2.1. Upon signing a prospect, the prospect will be transferred to the farm team where they will play until called up by their parent team. A player must have played at least 1 NHL game in the current NHL season (or past NHL season if it’s the off season) OR have ratings in the sim in order to be eligible for signing (ie, played sufficient AHL games to be included in the ratings pack). The prospect will be given his NHL AAV (Annual average salary factoring in performance bonuses) from the current season and the length of the contract will always be 3 years.

EXCEPTION: Goalies can be created with 0 games played in NHL so long as they have ratings. If they have never been signed to an NHL contract, they will be given a standard 3 year 750k salary. Otherwise they will be given their NHL contract. The purpose of this rule is to allow teams to have WAIVER EXEMPT goalies to ensure roster requirements.

11.2.1. Prospect Auto-Activation
Any prospect that has played more than ten (10) combined* NHL games OR more than one-hundred (100) combined* AHL games must be signed before the start of the unrestricted free agent period. Any qualifying prospect not signed when the UFA period starts, will become an UFA and can be signed by any team in the league.

*Not limited to 1 season, or 2 seasons in a row. The ten (10) NHL games OR one-hundred (100) AHL games is the players TOTAL career number of NHL or AHL games played. Regular season games ONLY. Pre-season, exhibition, and playoff games do NOT count.

11.3 Prospect limit
Teams are not permitted to have more then 50 prospects on there prospect list. Any trades of prospects that will put a team above the limit, will be voided. Before the annual entry draft, teams must also make sure they have room for the incoming prospects they are about to draft. So if a team has 10 draft picks and 45 prospects on their prospect list, they must make sure they adjust either the picks or the prospects before the end of the entry draft. Prospects can be released without compensation at any time.