Oh Sheet: A Look at Offer Sheet Rules, Compensation, and How The Rangers Could Get Boned

Oh, offer sheets. It seems like every year they’re mentioned as a thing that could happen. And every year we’re reminded that, while they exist, for the most part they exist sort of the same way Rocky V and The Green Lantern movie exist, in that we know they happened but serve no earthly purpose.

For the most part, though, teams pass on the opportunity to use this particular tool as a means of acquiring players from other teams. In the last 30 years there have been 21 players signed to offer sheets by other teams. Of those 21, all but eight were matched by the player’s original team. One of the more famous offer sheets involved the New York Rangers and inspired a documentary.

The offer sheet wars have ramped up a bit since 2021, with the three most recent offer sheets going unmatched. The recent push seemed to start in 2019 when the Montreal Canadiens signed Sebastian Aho to a five year, $42.27 million offer sheet in 2019, which was subsequently matched by the Carolina Hurricanes. The following year, the Hurricanes—in what was widely seen as a revenge move—signed Canadiens forward Jesperi Kotekniemi to an offer sheet which Montreal declined to match. This past offseason the St. Louis Blues poached defenseman Philip Broberg and forward Dylan Holloway from the Edmonton Oilers for a second-round pick and a third-round pick in 2025. 

Ok, now that we’ve gotten a brief history of the offer sheet out of the way, let’s do a quick primer on how they work. Brace yourself, we’re gonna get nerdy for a minute…

Who Can Be Signed to An Offer Sheet?

The short answer is: restricted free agents. 

The longer answer is that they have to be RFA’s who meet a specific set of qualifications:

• Have at least one NHL contract expire
  • Have played at least 80 NHL games if a forward or defenseman, or 28 NHL games if a goalie (applies only for players who have 3 years of NHL service)
• Be younger than 27 on July 1 of that year
• Be without a contract for the upcoming season
• Be tendered a qualifying offer by the current team by June 25 or the Monday after that year's NHL Entry Draft (whichever is later)

This is the full list of current players eligible to be signed to an offer sheet this summer.

What Are Offer Sheets?

The simple answer is that they’re contracts with a catch. If a team signs a player to an offer sheet, the player’s original team has seven days to decide if they want to (and can) match the terms of the offer sheet that has been presented. If that team declines, then the team that signed the player to the offer sheet sends the original team draft picks as compensation. The draft pick compensation is based on the average annual value of the contract that the player was signed to. 

There are seven tiers for pick compensation. The pick value doesn’t change, but the money does. The NHL recently released their tier levels:

• $1.54 million or less: No compensation
• $1.54 million to $2.34 million: Third-round pick
• $2.34 million to $4.68 million: Second-round pick
• $4.68 million to $7.02 million: First and third-round picks
• $7.02 million to $9.36 million: First, second, and third-round picks
• $9.36 million to $11.7 million: Two firsts, a second, and third-round picks
• Over $11.7 million: Four first-round picks

It’s worth pointing out that in the salary cap era, the most that any team has ever surrendered for a player signed to an offer sheet was a first, second, and third round pick when the Oilers signed Dustin Penner away from the Ducks in 2008. 

Here’s the thing though: you can’t just send any picks back in offer sheet compensation. They have to be your picks. That factors heavily into whether or not teams sign players to offer sheets.

Take Chicago for example: They have two first round picks in the 2026 draft—their own and Florida’s. If they successfully sign a player to an offer sheet at the fourth level, they can’t decide to send the other team Florida’s pick, which will likely be in the bottom half of the round. They have to send the team their pick which will probably be a lottery pick, making it highly unlikely that, despite their plethora of picks and cap space, bottom feeding teams would sign players to offer sheets. Similarly, if you’re a team like the Rangers that doesn’t have a second rounder in 2026, you can’t just trade for one and then use that pick. The Rangers would have to reacquire their original pick if they wanted to use it as offer sheet compensation. 

Capwages has a complete list of which teams can sign players to offer sheets at the respective levels. 

So, What Does This Mean for the Rangers?

The Rangers have roughly $11 million in cap space heading into this summer with a metric-crapton of holes on the roster. They also don’t have their own second rounder in 2026 and, depending on what they do with their first round pick this year, they may not have a first round pick in 2026 either. That combination makes it unlikely that they’re going to be able to sign anyone meaningful (Matthew Knies) to an offer sheet, but that’s not where the bad news ends. They’re also very susceptible to having their players tagged with offer sheets. 

Specifically, there are a couple of obvious (and some less obvious) players who could be targeted by other teams.