Islanders: Expiring contracts will slide to end of season (report)

Any New York Islanders pending free agent will have their deal slide to the end of 2019-20.

With the 2019-20 season still on hold for some time there’s a concern about what will happen with deals set to expire on June 30, 2020. The New York Islanders, for example, have 20 pending free agents whose contracts are set to expire in just over a month.

With the NHL seemingly settled on what format to use to re-start the 2019-20 season, they aren’t any closer to being able to actually start playing those games. The earliest estimate has play resuming in early-July if all goes well. So what happens to all of those contracts that will technically be expired?

According to a report, the NHL is set to have those deals slide to the end of the 2019-20 season. Whenever that is.

Sliding Deals

According to The Athletic’s Michael Russo (subscription required), the NHL and NHLPA will agree to have all contracts go through till the end of the 2019-20 season. Russo is clear to point out that this also applies to players on two-way deals.

The New York Islanders have 20 contracts that are set to expire at the end of 2019-20:

Restricted Free Agents (RFA)

• Mathew Barzal (C)
• Ryan Pulock (D)
• Devon Toews (D)
• Mitchell Vande Sompel (D)*
• Josh Ho-Sang (RW)*
• Sebastian Aho (D)*
• Grant Hutton (D)*
• Parker Wotherspoon (D)*
• Kyle Burroughs (D)*
• Linus Soderstrom (G)*

Unrestricted Free Agents (UFA)

• Matt Martin (LW)
• Derick Brassard (C)
• Tom Kuhnhackl (RW)
• Andy Greene (D)
• Thomas Greiss (G)
• Travis St. Denis (C)*
• Jordan Schmaltz (D)*
• Seth Helgeson (D)*
• Jared Coreau (G)*
• Christopher Gibson (G)*

*In the AHL.

So it seems that’s there’s no worry for the time being. If the season is extended all players will still be under contract. Including guys on two-way deals who were in the AHL. Those players will still be eligible to be brought up to the NHL assuming the rosters are expanded for the 2019-20 restart.

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I’m sure this is exactly what you thought was going to happen. It certainly makes sense that the NHL would have these deals slide until the end of the year. But until this report, we had no idea what was going to happen.