UFA Re-signing Rule

[ECFHL Commissioner]

Hey guys, I need some feedback. It was recently brought to my attention that I have f'd up. I've told a few GMs in our league that during the offseason teams can only send one offer to one of their UFAs. After reviewing our rules, that was not the case. Before I started the ECFHL, we changed our old WHL rule to allow teams one offer for each of their UFAs. So I need some feedback as to how you guys want me to remedy this situation. I know a couple of GMs made trades directly because of this rule. I screwed up and told them the wrong info and I'm here owning up to it. Let me know your thoughts and we'll go from there.

[LosAngelesGM]

In fairness to Nick, with all the information that he has to handle, this was a rule that we altered entering the season and how I read it in the rules, it states (in summary)...

We have one offer to make to every UFA we have. It does not state anywhere you only can offer to 1 UFA and the rest you lose.

Now, Nick is admitting fault as stated above, but I wanted to defend him a bit here as this rule for all UFA's was something we changed before we began. Without really thinking, he was referring to our old rule when telling GM's the UFA Resigning process.

How do we fix this?? Well for one, we can't go back and reverse trades. That is not an option and will not happen. I know Nick is open to suggestions, and I am as well, but reversing trades is off the table.

I think we continue as is, and revisit the rule come the offseason. I stated to Nick, to have a good FA and make it worthwhile, we should limit the UFA amount to 2 UFA's resigned per season. This should allow some good players to reach the Open Market and make FA a fun process for all.

[BluesGM]

i'd keep it at one UFA - even two would lead to a very watered down FA period. but that's just my opinion, no big deal either way to me.

i have no cap room anyway to sign players, but i think free agency is pointless if we let teams re-sign too many players.

[Avs]

I had been roster planning with the intent of retaining multiple UFA's, so I would be against the 1 and done rule. Especially if that 1 is not guaranteed to resign with me. If he WAS guaranteed to resign then I would be ok with the rule change. But since there's no guarantee's, we should be allowed to make UFA offers to multiple players.

[leafs]

IMO if you're only going to allow teams to resign 1 of their UFAs then you have to make the UFA age at least 29-30

I imagine most teams will be dead set against that so I think you have to allow teams to resign at least 2-3 of their own UFAs (provided the UFA age is somewhere around 27) or else you will get the Chicago Blackhawk effect (some teams having to retool a lot of their roster after success)

[NJDevils]

I've honestly never had a league that had both a salary cap AND a limit to the amount of players you can resign.

I like the idea of being able to resign more than one of your free agents. Maybe we can agree on a specific percentage increase? Or have someone act as a player agent and try and negotiate a contract?

[penguins]

GM's should be able to make one offer for each UFA. Other wise you're dropping the value for every player 29+ years of age.

Will Pens

[bluejacketsgm]

I had been working on my roster thinking that we only were allowed to negotiate with one UFA per season as that's what I was told near the beginning of the season by another gm and in discussions throughout the season I'm pretty certain I'm not the only one who was under that impression. It did cause me to trade away one of my best performing guys this season but I'm not going to whine TOO much =) I think it would be kinda nice to actually have some decent FA's in the market for a change considering it's usually a glut of guys who are just depth/filler. Getting the confirmation on this now though changes my deadline dealing plans just a wee bit

[bluejacketsgm]

so anyway...it's nice to know I don't have to work hard at dealing away one of my guys who becomes a UFA in the same season as another.

[ECFHL Commissioner]

So is everyone cool with keeping it as stated in the rules for the upcoming offseason? I brought it up because I didn't want to really screw teams.