CBA School: Article 16 – League Schedule, Playing Roster, Reserve Lists, Practice Sessions

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4 years ago

Some parts of the CBA are a bit of a hodge-podge, seemingly filled up by a bunch of disparate pieces that don’t really piece together logically.

Friends, Article 16 – League Schedule, Playing Roster, Reserve Lists, Practice Sessions, is one of those parts of the CBA. Let’s muddle through it together!

Regular season games

Per Section 16.1, each club shall play a maximum of 82 regular season games. In the event the season is shortened, a player’s NHL salary would be reduced proportionately. (This is intended more for if the NHL and NHLPA decide to reduce the schedule ahead of time, rather than the COVID-19 situation potentially ending the season prematurely.)

Playoff games

Per Section 16.2, the playoffs are mandated as four rounds of best-of-seven. In 2005-06 and 2006-07 the league had the option for add an 8 team qualifying round (4 teams per conference) but didn’t. It’s unclear why that was mentioned in the 2013 CBA, though.

Regular season duration

Per Section 16.3(a), the regular season has to be scheduled over a period of not less than 184 days. All teams must play at least one game in the first three days and the last three days of season. The NHL gets final schedule approval, but the NHLPA has to be consulted.

Playing roster maximum and minimums

Section 16.4 is pretty straightforward.

The roster maximum is 23 players, but is lifted after the trade deadline (as long as teams stay under the salary cap and adhere to the recall restrictions).
The roster minimum is two goalies and 18 skaters. Teams don’t need to call anybody up to meet the minimum on non-game days, provided they’re only below the minimum due to an injury.

Monthly schedule

Section 16.5 runs through the guidelines that go into team schedules and game schedules.

Teams “shall endeavor to schedule” no less than four days off a month. If you travel on a day, it’s not considered a day off. The league-mandated breaks (Christmas holidays, the All-Star Break, potential Olympic participation) count towards the day off goal.
No travel or practices are allowed Dec. 24-26. If Dec. 26 falls on a Saturday, games may be scheduled and Dec. 23 substituted as a day off.
The All-Star Break is also considered day off for all purposes. The day after the All-Star Break is only for practice or travel only, and practices can’t start before 2 p.m. local time on that day.
The mandated CBA break was negotiated independent of the CBA by the NHL and NHLPA, and isn’t in the 2013 CBA document itself.

Holiday roster freeze

Per Section 16.5(d), the NHL’s holiday roster freeze runs 11:59 p.m. local time on Dec. 19 to 12:01 a.m. local on Dec. 28 (functionally it’s Dec. 20-27 inclusive), with no waivers, trades or loans to the minors allowed.

There are two exceptions: One is that a team can make transactions to become cap compliant if a player comes off the long-term injury reserve during that period. The other is that a player on emergency recall can be sent back and a player called up on regular recall after Dec. 11 can be sent back before 11:59 p.m. local time Dec. 23 as long as they don’t require waivers to do so.

Game times

The NHL can’t schedule a game before noon local time without asking the NHLPA for permission.

Rooms on the road

Any player who’s not on his entry level contract is entitled to his own room on the road.

Injury reserve and injured non-roster

The injury reserve and injured non-roster list are basically the same thing, but they’re slightly different (as detailed in Section 16.11):

Players can be placed on the IR if they’ll be unable to play due to injury or illness for a minimum of 7 days. (They can be placed on IR retroactively.) If you’re injured while on active roster (even if it happened last season), you qualify for IR.
If you’re injured when not on the active roster (or fail the entry medical exam in training camp), you go on injured non-roster list.

If a player’s on IR, they can be replaced on the active roster but they still count against the cap. While not explicitly spelled out here, Injured non-roster players typically don’t count against the cap (unless they accumulated 50 games of pension plan service in the prior season). (Juuso Valimaki was considered injured non-roster all season because he was hurt during the off-season and wasn’t on the active roster, but he counted against the cap because he was on the NHL roster for more than 50 games the season prior.)

Non-roster list

If a player won’t be available for a non-injury reason, they’re placed on the non-roster list per Section 16.12. They still count against the cap but they can be replaced on the active roster. (Bobby Ryan was on the non-roster list for Ottawa while he was in the NHLPA’s Player Assistance Program.)

There’s also a roster limit exception related to non-roster status; if a team’s going to be over 23 players due to activating someone from the IR or acquiring a player via waivers or a trade, they can temporarily declare a player non-roster while they’re on waivers. (Normally players who are on waivers are counted on the active roster.) But both players (the new or activated player and the waived player) count against the cap.

Goaltender exemption

Per Section 16.13, if a team’s at 23 players and one of their goalies has a short-term injury, they can exceed the roster limit by adding a third goalie. (If the injury is more significant, the expectation is they would place that goalie on the IR.) This goalie exemption can only last for 48 hours, all three goalies are allowed to take warm-ups for any games during that period, and all three goalies count against the cap. You get two goalie exemptions a season, and you can use them back-to-back.

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