Ah, the offer sheet. It’s one of the most useful transactions at starting controversy in the National Hockey League.
While a team’s fanbases will have rivalries with other fanbases, it’s not quite the same for general managers. A team needs to make trades with other teams to get better, leading to an unwritten rule to not screw over other teams with the offer sheet. Realistically, a ton of high-quality restricted free agents remain as such after the Jul. 1 deadline, but general managers often avoid using the offer sheet.
The offer sheet has been around forever, with the first player receiving one in August of 1986. From that season until Feb. 1998, 32 offer sheets were handed out to players, with the likes of Teemu Selänne, Brendan Shanahan, Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson, and countless other 90’s stars receiving one.
Prior to the implementation of the salary cap after the 2004-05 lockout, the last offer sheet was when the Carolina Hurricanes gave one to Sergei Fedorov of the Detroit Red Wings. The Wings matched, but the contract the Hurricanes offered featured a bonus of $12 million if the team he signed with made the Conference Finals. Of course, this was added to incentivize the contending Red Wings not to match, but they did and won the 1998 Stanley Cup.
From the 1998 off-season, until a new offer sheet structure was implemented after the 2004-05 lockout, there were no offer sheets. With the introduction of the salary cap, the Philadelphia Flyers offered Ryan Kesler a one-year, $1.9 million deal which the Vancouver Canucks promptly matched.