r/nhl • u/MrCockingFinally • 3h ago
Discussion NMCs and NTCs offer players less leverage than most people are making out. UFA status has always been the primary source of player leverage.
There have been 4 recent high profile cases of players wanting out of their teams. Quinn Hughes, Brady Tkachuk, Connor Hellebuyck, Dylan Larkin.
Of those, two got traded relatively quickly. Two got shown the double bird by their teams.
Hughes and Tkachuk got traded, so what do they have in common? Both were almost at the end of their current contracts. They both informed their teams they wanted out when they had roughly 2 years left.
By contrast, Larkin and Hellebuyck both have serious term left on their contracts. 5 and 7 years respectively. Neither have yet been traded, and their teams are waiting for a good enough offer.
Trade protection can only block a trade, it can't force a trade. The best leverage players have to force a trade is the prospect of them walking to UFA status with no return for their teams, which for players of this calibre is a disastrous prospect for a team's asset management.
So in my opinion, the freakout about trade protection is way overblown. If you were to make it such that requesting a trade voids an NMC, players will simply never do it, and will instead simply inform their team they do not plan to sign an extension. Which is allegedly what Hughes and Tkachuk did rather than directly requesting a trade based on reports at the time.
