Qualifying Offer Calculator

• Teams must extend a qualifying offer to a restricted free agent to retain negotiation rights.
  • A qualifying offer is an official Standard Player Contract (SPC) offer which shall be 1 year in length, and which can be subject to salary arbitration should the player be eligible.
  • Clubs have until the later of June 25th or the first Monday after the Entry Draft to submit Qualifying Offers. For 2023, the deadline is June 30th at 5pm ET.
  • Qualifying Offers apply to Group 2 and Group 4 free agents.
  • Submitting a Qualifying Offers gives the prior club the right of first refusal to match any offer sheet submitted, or receive draft pick compensation.
  • If the player rejects the qualifying offer, they remain an RFA and their rights are retained by the team.
  • If a player does not receive a qualifying offer, the player becomes a UFA.
• The qualifying offer is calculated from the players base salary (NHL salary minus signing bonus), and at minimum must meet the seasons minimum salary requirements:
• 110% of the base salary if the base salary is less than or equal to $660,000
• 105% of the base salary if the base salary is greater than $660,000 or less than $1,000,000. However, this qualifying offer cannot exceed $1,000,000.
• 100% of the base salary if the base salary is equal to or greater than $1,000,000.
• CBA Reference 10.2 (a) (ii)
• For players who are on expiring contracts that were signed after July 10, 2020:
• The Qualifying Offer is limited to 120% of their previous contracts annual average (AAV)
• Reference: 2020 NHL CBA extension Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
• The qualifying offer must be a One-Way offer if the following three requirements are met (A goaltender is considered to have played a game if they are on the bench as a backup for this scenario):
  1. In the previous three seasons, the player played in:
     • 180 NHL games (or as pro-rated in the table below)
  2. In the previous season, the player played in:
     • 60 NHL game (or as pro-rated in the table below)
  3. The player did not clear waivers in the previous season.

Games Played QualifyingOfferTypeDeterminer Pro-Ratings