Roster lock during playoffs?

[Capn Cally]

Honestly, this issue occurred to me a couple weeks ago.  I can't recall ever debating this with myself in the past, we've always allowed current year roster moves right up until the playoffs are over, or when the current NHL regular season officially ends.  But for some reason this year it struck me as odd that we allow this.  A roster lock seems more natural, right?  But if we did that, playoff teams wouldn't be able to call up prospects or activate IR players.  A full roster lock doesn't make much sense.  What kind of partial lock would make sense?  Allow only free drops?  Allow only certain types of buyouts (where no future money could be added to the current year)? Suspend the buyout discount during the playoffs?  It starts to get confusing.  Where to draw the line on a partial lock is debatable and it's probably a waste of time. I think it's always worked out well the way we've done it and I don't really like adding extra rules.  So I'm going with status quo unless others feel strongly about this.

Over in QLS we do it a bit differently and it's been fine so far in the few years it's been in existence.

Basically we lock buy-outs and waivers sometime after the trade deadline and just before playoffs start.
Reasoning is, if you're in playoffs you roll with the players and contracts you have, make your playoff run, and deal with everything else in the off-season.
If you're out of playoffs, you can make the necessary buy-outs if you want, but it has to be done before the season is over and playoffs start. Pretty much you're throwing in the white towel and gearing up towards the next season already.

Then once playoffs start, everything regarding roster moves is locked, except for those teams that are in playoffs, you can still do the minor moves such as activating players off LTIR if they become healthy during your playoff run (and you have the cap room), calling up and sending down prospect players (the rule is a bit different in QLS, as any player with a prospect contract can still be sent up/down). And you can still drop players "for free" which is usually done if you want to call a minor leaguer up who is doing better (same as here, under $1m per year are free drops).

Seems to have worked fine so far.

On the flip side, like I mentioned previously in the thread... It does make sense to allow GM's to use up any cap space this year to make necessary buy-outs (like the $10m S.Doan one).
Just gets tricky as some teams have boat loads of cap room while others do not, and using myself as an example, you can sign one player for a huge number for 1 year ($9m per year) and then just buy him out when your season is done for $6m and have $3m more to use towards other buy-outs that you want to do. Of course, you have to have the $9m in cap to begin with.
I guess the benefit is that if you're cap savvy through the year, you can afford to make such moves, but if you go up to the cap limit, you don't, haha.

It'll be tougher too next year with the cap down and a lot more prospect guys converting from $0.2 or $0.5 per year to actual contracts.

[Rob]

Over in QLS we do it a bit differently and it's been fine so far in the few years it's been in existence.

Basically we lock buy-outs and waivers sometime after the trade deadline and just before playoffs start.
Reasoning is, if you're in playoffs you roll with the players and contracts you have, make your playoff run, and deal with everything else in the off-season.
If you're out of playoffs, you can make the necessary buy-outs if you want, but it has to be done before the season is over and playoffs start. Pretty much you're throwing in the white towel and gearing up towards the next season already.

Then once playoffs start, everything regarding roster moves is locked, except for those teams that are in playoffs, you can still do the minor moves such as activating players off LTIR if they become healthy during your playoff run (and you have the cap room), calling up and sending down prospect players (the rule is a bit different in QLS, as any player with a prospect contract can still be sent up/down). And you can still drop players "for free" which is usually done if you want to call a minor leaguer up who is doing better (same as here, under $1m per year are free drops).

Seems to have worked fine so far.

On the flip side, like I mentioned previously in the thread... It does make sense to allow GM's to use up any cap space this year to make necessary buy-outs (like the $10m S.Doan one).
Just gets tricky as some teams have boat loads of cap room while others do not, and using myself as an example, you can sign one player for a huge number for 1 year ($9m per year) and then just buy him out when your season is done for $6m and have $3m more to use towards other buy-outs that you want to do. Of course, you have to have the $9m in cap to begin with.
I guess the benefit is that if you're cap savvy through the year, you can afford to make such moves, but if you go up to the cap limit, you don't, haha.

It'll be tougher too next year with the cap down and a lot more prospect guys converting from $0.2 or $0.5 per year to actual contracts.

One very simple fix that could basically solve the problem (not that I'm convinced there's really a problem, just thinking out loud) is to add a buyout discount deadline at some point around the 3/4 mark of the season.  Or perhaps a deadline that coincides with the trade deadline like you do in QLS.  Buyouts would be allowed after the deadline but not at the 66% rate, you would have to pay full price to buyout the contract.  This forces teams to make a decision to either go for it or not right at the trade deadline, which is basically what we want anyway and it might encourage more trade deadline action.  Then the playoff teams have no roster restrictions, but there's less late season/playoff cap maneuverability.  Which also adds an balance factor since the best teams have less roster/cap flexibility going into the next season. 

I still prefer to do nothing; just an idea.

[GypsieDeathBringer]

Personally I like whatever gives GMs the most freedom because then they tend to be more involved and trying to figure out the following years cap situation takes time, so keeping the freeze just on free agency makes the most sense to me.

[Anthony]

I guess it just seems weird that your season can be over and you can still make moves on your current roster. After some thought it seems like a non-issue. If there isn't already, just have a deadline of when the rosters rollover to the next year.