Offer sheet

In US professional sports an offer sheet is a contract offered to a restricted free agent by a team other than the one for which he played during the prior season. Different leagues have different ways to handle offer sheets.

In the National Hockey League, an offer sheet is a contract offered to a restricted free agent by a team other than the one for which he played during the prior season. If the player signs the offer sheet, his current team has seven days to match the contract offer and keep the player or else he goes to the team that gave the offer sheet, with compensation going to his first team.

Restricted (Group 2) NHL free agents can discuss new contracts with other teams beginning on the day after that season's entry draft, which is also the deadline for a team to make a qualifying offer. Discussions must cease if a player accepts a contract from his own team or is confirmed to go into arbitration with his team, be it player- or team-filed.

When a player accepts an offer sheet and his team declines to match the value of the contract, his former team is entitled to draft pick compensation in the next upcoming draft or drafts based on the averaged yearly salary of the contract. This averaged annual salary is determined by dividing the total compensation by the lesser of the number of years of the Offer Sheet or five years (the latter clause has potentially come into play with one offer sheet---offered to Shea Weber in the 2012 offseason). These values were originally set for the 2005 offseason to coincide with the new NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement, with percentage increases annually equal to the same percentage increase in the average salaries of all NHL players. The 2005 and 2015 offseason values are as follows:

A team may not have two different players sign offer sheets at the same time if the value of the offered contracts would involve any of the same draft picks as compensation. For example, if a restricted free agent accepts a contract with a yearly salary of at least $8,410,977, the team can only offer to other restricted free agents contracts less than $3,364,392 per year, since those would not require any first round pick as compensation. In addition, if a team does not have a pick in the next upcoming draft available for compensation, they may not make a contract offer in the certain range where that pick is needed for compensation. Teams may not use draft picks acquired in trades with other teams, but extra acquired draft picks can influence a team's decision to submit an offer sheet.

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