A Brief Look At Calgary’s Reserve List

9 years ago

One thing that raised a bit of questions over the last few days was the concept of the NHL’s Reserve List for each team. In the interest of clearing up any questions and ideally creating a nice sharable landing space for questions about the Calgary Flames’ list, here’s a quick reserve list primer.

WHAT’S THE RESERVE LIST?

Per the Collective Bargaining Agreement, it’s the list of players “belonging” to an NHL team is comprised of the following four categories, the total of which may not exceed 80 players:

Pro players
A maximum of 50; these are the active, running contracts at any given time.
Signed junior players
These are the deals that are “sliding.”
Unsigned draft choices
Players who aren’t signed yet but that the team retains their rights. Basically junior players within two years after their selection and college players for up to four.
Defected players
Unsigned draft choices who are playing in Europe. I think Chad Billins, an RFA who is playing in Europe, fits into this category, as the Flames retain his North American rights in a manner similar to how Tampa Bay (and later Montreal) retained Karri Ramo’s.

Absent from this list are players on AHL deals.

The reserve list is important because, as I learned regarding Douglas Murray, players not on an NHL team’s reserve list as of the trade deadline cannot play for that team in the post-season. This is also why any UFA college goalie, such as Boston University’s Matt O’Connor, couldn’t play for the Flames in the playoffs, but both Mason McDonald and Jon Gillies – if signed – could.