Gear: How do NHL player no-move and no-trade clauses work?
Imagine working at your desk for a company in, say, Los Angeles, when your boss calls you and says: “You’ve just been traded to our Boston office. You start tomorrow.” Both great cities, but for the average citizen, that would be an enormous shock to the system and an unimaginable change.
For an NHL player, a phone call like that is an everyday reality.
It’s no wonder then that one of the rights that the NHL Players’ Association has worked hard to maintain for its members is the contractual limitation on player movement. These can be some of the most hotly contested aspects of a player contract.
Negotiating a no-move or no-trade clause will give a player a sense of comfort, security and control of their own destiny they wouldn’t otherwise have in the business. You can appreciate the appeal that would have to a player and his family and why they might even be willing to accept less money as a trade-off.
Here is a recent example: Jeff Carter did not have formal no-trade protection in his current contract, which was signed by the Philadelphia Flyers way back in 2010. When his name popped up in trade rumors in recent years and Carter did not want to be traded, he put out through his agent, Rick Curran, that he would simply retire in the event of a trade.
After a courting process by Penguins GM Ron Hextall, Carter consented to a trade last spring. When it came time to sign a two-year extension last month, Carter sacrificed money in order to achieve the formal trade veto power he was missing in Los Angeles.
The belief is Carter’s AAV was somewhere in the $3.5 million range before settling on $3.125 million to get the full no-move clause. In other words, to Carter – who will have earned more than $75 million USD in his career when it is all said and done – that off-ice comfort and security was worth nearly $1 million to him over those two years.
It’s easy to see why teams would want to reduce a players’ pay in exchange for that lack of team control. Teams want as much flexibility as possible to construct and reshape their rosters, so no-move and no-trade clauses can become a huge burden on a team when its plans for a player change. Teams are well-served to be stingy in this area.
Some GMs make it policy to not dole them out. In St. Louis, Doug Armstrong has never given a player a full no-move clause, same with Lou Lamoriello on Long Island and Jarmo Kekalainen in Columbus. There are special exceptions to the rule: Captain Roman Josi has the only no-trade protection on David Poile’s Nashville Predators; Aleksander Barkov is the only Panther signed by GM Bill Zito with no-trade protection.
Each year as the trade deadline approaches, the no-move or no-trade clauses negotiated between players and clubs are thrust into the spotlight and can play a huge role in what transpires on deadline day.
Claude Giroux, the No. 1 player on Frank Seravalli’s latest Trade Targets board, is another excellent example. He holds a full no-move clause. Since he would have to approve any transaction, the Flyers have allowed his agent to contact teams and gather a list of acceptable teams before they even engage in any discussions on their captain.
Whether your team is a buyer or a seller, here’s what you need to know about NMCs and NTCs:
> Protection from player movement can only be negotiated by a player who has earned unrestricted free agent status. If a player signs a contract with a term that includes restricted free agent years and unrestricted free agent years, no-move or no-trade rights can only apply to the UFA years of the contract.
> A no-move clause is the highest form of protection for a player. It means the player cannot be traded, waived, loaned to another league or left exposed in an expansion draft without his prior consent.
> A full no-trade clause is exactly what it sounds like: the player cannot be traded to any team without his prior consent, but the player can be loaned if he clears waivers and can be exposed in an expansion draft.
> Finally, a “limited” or “modified” no-trade clause gives the player the right to designate a specified number of teams to which he either would or would not accept a trade. Usually, the clause is drafted such that a player specifies the teams to which he would not accept a trade, but it can also be structured so that a player must specify a certain number of teams to which he would accept a trade.
A player’s limited no-trade list can specify as few as one team or as many as thirty (a full no-trade list would obviously have thirty-one), but the most common no-trade lists include 5, 8, 10 or 15 teams.
Depending on the language of the contract, a no-trade list is usually required to be submitted by the player before the season starts. The clause can also be worded in such a way as to compel the player to provide a list upon request in advance of the trade deadline.
However, in those cases, a player who wants to stay put will simply list the teams he knows will be buyers at the deadline in order to tie the team’s hands, so clearly that’s not a strategy favored by teams. This is when wording agreed upon sometimes years prior comes home to roost for one side or the other.
In a multi-year deal, the language often permits the player to submit a revised list each year at the commencement of the year. This allows the player to strategically pick teams each season if the power balance in the league shifts or personal circumstances change.
The language will sometimes state that if a player does not deliver an updated list by a specified date in each year of the contract, the list remains unchanged from the original or previous list submitted.
However, clever contract wording can also specify that if the player doesn’t deliver a new list each year, any further no-move or no-trade rights are forfeited from that point forward. That can be a disastrous omission from a player agent – and don’t think that never happens.
The identity of teams on a no-trade list can tell you a lot about a player’s motives.
Sometimes, the lists are very regionally-focused. Lists which exclude all Canadian teams (how dare they?!), lists which exclude cold-weather cities, lists which exclude the travel-heavy west coast or lists which exclude certain regions of the United States.
Alternatively, lists can be based on where teams are expected to finish in the standings – or teams that are consistent cellar dwellers. Teams with tight budgets, who are known to not treat players with the amenities that players in well-funded organizations can also be frequent no-trade list targets. Players talk constantly. They know which organizations treat them right.
A player’s “no” list might include all of the expected bottom teams if he would only accept being traded to a contender. Or it might include a number of teams that the player knows would likely have little interest in him, either through a past experience with a coach or manager, or because it is a divisional or conference rival. Players try to expand the reach of the clause through their lists so as to make it difficult for a trade to materialize.
The number of times that the best deal available to a team is one that it can’t take advantage of because of the player’s no-trade clause is surprisingly frequent. Even in cases where a player has only five teams on his “no” list, it feels like one of those teams will always be interested in the player and have to be advised that no deal is possible without a waiver of the rights.
I have seen and heard of proposed trades that would have been blockbusters if only the player had been amenable to the trade.
On the other hand, it is surprising to see how often the provisions get waived.
A player has the right not to waive the rights they have earned and negotiated, but so many factors tend to get in the way of a player actually exerting those rights. Pressure from fans can be intense, making the player feel like a pariah if he doesn’t agree to do what the team wants.
Pressure can also come from the team itself. Players don’t want to feel unwelcome, and if the only deal on the table is from a team on a player’s no-trade list, sometimes an alternative that seemed unappealing to a player at the time of signing will suddenly look better than remaining in an awkward situation.
A decision to waive a no-trade clause can also have to do with a change in the player’s role on the team. Players are proud and competitive, and if the player has been waived, repeatedly scratched or otherwise put into a reduced role, the shine of permanently staying in that city may wear off and make the player more open to the new situation.
Finally, there is the ultimate good-guy waiver of no-trade rights. This is a player, likely at the end of his career, who despite wanting to stay in the city where he signed agrees to waive his no-trade in order to help the team he loves acquire something for the future. You want these unicorns on your team.
Deadline day usually delivers drama, and often that drama is heightened by the presence or absence of player move limitations. The lesson is simple: Teams, hand them out at your own peril.
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Chris Gear joined Daily Faceoff in January after a 12-year run with the Vancouver Canucks, most recently as the club’s Assistant General Manager and Chief Legal Officer. Before migrating over to the hockey operations department, where his responsibilities included contract negotiations, CBA compliance, assisting with roster and salary cap management and governance for the AHL franchise, Gear was the Canucks’ vice president and general counsel.
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