Photo: Washington Capitals

Springtime is the best time of the year for hockey fans as of course the NHL playoffs begin. It’s also traditionally a time for signing prospects to their first contracts with their parent organizations. With the Capitals’ recent signings, we thought we would provide an update on the Capitals current list of prospect contracts, beginning with “Entry Level Contracts”.

A QUICK PRIMER ON ELC’S
All NHL entry-level contracts (ELC) are age-based and all are automatically “two-way” contracts. Players younger than 25 years of age as of September 15th of their first NHL contract must sign an ELC which have set limitations.

• The length of the entry-level contract is also dependent on the player’s age:
• 18-21 years of age: 3 years
• 22-23 years of age: 2 years
• 24 years of age: 1 year

NHL Entry Level Contracts have the following components:

• Maximum Salary $925,000
• Signing Bonus: Limited to 10% of maximum salary or $92,500 (included in salary)
• Type A Bonus: Maximum $850,000 ($212,500 per individual bonus) for such performance based qualifiers such as ice time, goals, plus/minus
• Type B Bonus: Maximum $2,000,000 for league performance awards (example: top 5 post-season awards) per season
  Theoretically, a player could earn total compensation of $3,775,000

CURRENT ENTRY LEVEL CONTRACTS WITH THE CAPITALS
With the recent signings of Shane Gersich, Brian Pinho and Tobias Geisser, the Capitals currently have 20 entry-level contracts in place, with six of those contracts expiring after this season. Here is the latest list of ELC contracts:

DECISION TIME
The Capitals have several Entry Level Contracts coming to an end at the end of the season.

• Jakub Jerabek
• Adam Carlson
• Riley Barber
• Tyler Lewington
• Tim McGauley
• Madison Bowey

There are surely a few difficult decisions to be made for Capitals GM Brian MacLellan, considering the the age of the players, their current stage of development and the (adjusted) projected ceilings for improvement for each of the players.

NEXT STEPS
In subsequent posts we will begin to assess each of the current contracts, identify opportunities for new ELC’S and provide grades and forecasts for each of the players and their current contracts.

By Jon Sorensen