Roster Management

[Admin]

A. Roster Size

1. Pro rosters must have at least 22 players, including suspended and injured players. Pro rosters must also have a minimum of 12 forwards, 6 defensemen, and 2 goaltenders who are healthy and capable of playing on each game night*. Pro rosters may only have a maximum of 23 healthy, eligible players during the regular season*.
2. Farm Rosters must have at least 20 players and no more than 28 players, including a minimum of 12 forwards, 6 defensemen, and 2 goaltenders. Under-aged (U20) players are not eligible to play in the AHL, with the exceptions outlined in C).
3. Organizations are limited to 50 contracts, including AHL players but not signed prospects playing in juniors or overseas.

* these are in-game EHM requirements.

B. Goaltender Games Played

Goaltenders will not be permitted to play more than a combined 67 regular season games across all levels (pro and farm).
When the backup goalie starts a game, then gets pulled, this game counts against the main goalie’s number. If a team’s main goaltender reaches 67 games played, his backup will start all remaining regular-season games.

C. Underaged AHL Players

To accelerate player development, AHL teams are allowed to carry a limited number of underaged, junior-eligible players. Players who are under 20 years old as of September 15 (i.e. in their third season since their first year of draft eligibility) are considered underaged. Beginning in 2020, GMs may select one new player to give underaged AHL status to before demoting them to the AHL (previously, it was two per season). Any underaged players without eligiblity on an AHL roster will either be given status (if a slot is still available) or otherwise returned to juniors. Underage AHL-eligible status cannot be transferred to different players and lasts as long as the player is underage (i.e. up to two seasons after being drafted). If an underaged player is traded, his status persists with his new team; GMs do not re-coup additional selections.

For the 2020-21 season only, GMs will be allowed to select one additional 19-year-old underager from the 2019 draft as part of the transition to the new system, presuming that they would have selected an 18-year-old in 2019.

D. Injury Call-ups

If a general manager fails to replace a player in the event of an injury, a suspension or a transaction, the simmer responsible for that evening’s games will select the AHL player with the highest OA at the required position and insert him into the NHL lineup. If this replacement player is eligible for waivers, he will be exempt as an emergency call-up. Also, AHL lines will be fixed using the Use computer lines option.

E. Fast-sign Option (AHL)

General managers can instantly sign players with an (OFF+DEF)/2 rating of 59 and under to a one-year contract, at the league minimum salary, by simply posting a message in the appropriate waiver thread.

F. Training

Training changes must be submitted via the GM Office control panel.

G. Suspensions

A suspension is handed out for all intent-to-injure penalties resulting in injuries of two weeks or longer, at the rate of a one game per week of injury time (as listed in statistics.ehm), up to a maximum of 25 games. This is a minimum suspension length. Any game-generated suspensions shorter than this length will be overwritten, while the rather rare case of longer game-generated suspensions will not be edited down.

H. Post-Trade Deadline Acquisitions

Per this 2021 ruling, any players whose rights are acquired after the trade deadline (whether through a trade, waiver claim, or free agent signing) is ineligible to play in the playoffs. This does not apply to prospect ELC signings whose rights belonged to the signing team prior to the deadline. This rule will be enforced by setting the team for these players to zero in players.ehm once the playoffs begin, so they cannot be used in lines (but their rights will remain with their team).

I. Forward Positions

Once per season, GMs may request that a forward they own the rights to add (in rare cases of forwards with no existing secondary position) or change a secondary position to RW or LW, which will typically mean swapping a C/LW or C/RW to a LW/RW.

[SharksGM]

I removed the part about extra suspension games for repeat offenders because it's a hassle to check and nobody has actually been doing it since 2015-16.

[SharksGM]

C. Underaged AHL Players
To accelerate player development, AHL teams are allowed to carry up to two junior-aged (under-20) players. Players who will turn 20 before the end of the calendar year are not considered underaged at the start of the season. Exempt underage players will be identified before assignment to the AHL; if the team does not do so explicitly, the player will gain that status immediately upon first being on the roster for an AHL game (dressed or not). Exempt underager status cannot be transferred to different players; if an underaged player is traded, his status persists with his new team.

Note the clarifications here. If you really want to, you can delay naming your underage players until later in the season although there's no real advantage in doing so. You can't stash extra underagers in the AHL either, although again, I don't see why you'd want to. And most importantly, underager status stays with the player, not with the team, in case you ever decide to trade an underage player.

[SharksGM]

Junior players do not count towards the 50 contract limit. This rule was changed two years ago, but not updated in the rulebook until now.

There was also a 26-man limit for AHL rosters which we never enforced. Since you can have 50 contracts, I increased that to 28 In case you want to run 22 NHL + 28 AHL. I don't want to see 20+30, though.

[Dallas Stars GM]

I would not buy out Makiniemi if I would know that..... but whatever, I'm NOT gonna b!tch about that. I'll get by.
Thanks for the update

[SharksGM]

I'm removing the one game suspension for injuries less than a month because it's too much of a pain to constantly check for minor injuries, enter the suspension and force the offending team to re-do their lines two consecutive games. A major penalty is enough.

[SharksGM]

For the 2020-21 season only, GMs will be allowed to select one additional 19-year-old underager from the 2019 draft as part of the transition to the new system, presuming that they would have selected an 18-year-old in 2019.

Although I announced this earlier, I neglected to add it to rulebook until now. I've clarified the whole section on underagers. Let me know if anything is still unclear or ambiguous.

[AvalancheGM]

Personally I'm not a fan of the 22-man minimum roster. If a team wants to carry less to save cap room (and thus risk a bad callup in case of injury during sim), should be their prerogative IMO.

[SharksGM]

Personally I'm not a fan of the 22-man minimum roster. If a team wants to carry less to save cap room (and thus risk a bad callup in case of injury during sim), should be their prerogative IMO.

There are two sides to this rule, both of which I'm happy with:

- Realism. We basically allow instantaneous call-ups/demotions, which are physically unrealistic. Most real-life NHL teams carry 21-22 players, especially on road trips or if their AHL teams are far away.
- Convenience. Fixing broken lines due to injury or suspension is much easier if you can just drop in a replacement player. Figuring out who to call up takes mental effort, usually breaks AHL lines and wastes a lot of time while often annoying both the simmer and the GM.

The rule doesn't completely solve the problem since there are a few loopholes, but it did significantly reduce the number of times lines had to be edited manually and it is therefore priceless.

[SharksGM]

I simplified the suspension rules from this:

G.Suspensions
A suspension is handed out for all intent-to-injure penalties resulting in injuries of one month or longer according to the following table:

Injury Length of Suspension
1 month ..... 2 games
2 months ..... 4 games
3 months ..... 6 games
4 months ..... 8 games
6 mths + ..... 10 games

... to the new formula of 1 game per week, capped at 25 games. I'll come up with something else for the playoffs.

[SharksGM]

A. Roster Size

1. Pro rosters must have at least 22 players, including suspended and injured players. Pro rosters must also have a minimum of 12 forwards, 6 defensemen, and 2 goaltenders who are healthy and capable of playing on each game night*. Pro rosters may only have a maximum of 23 healthy, eligible players during the regular season*.

Clarified this rule, since Kevin asked.

[SharksGM]

H. Post-Trade Deadline Acquisitions

Per this 2021 ruling, any players whose rights are acquired after the trade deadline (whether through a trade, waiver claim, or free agent signing) is ineligible to play in the playoffs. This does not apply to prospect ELC signings whose rights belonged to the signing team prior to the deadline. This rule will be enforced by setting the team for these players to zero in players.ehm once the playoffs begin, so they cannot be used in lines (but their rights will remain with their team).

Finally got around to adding this.

[SharksGM]

C. Underaged AHL Players

To accelerate player development, AHL teams are allowed to carry a limited number of underaged, junior-eligible players. Players who are under 20 years old as of September 15 (i.e. in their third season since their first year of draft eligibility) are considered underaged. Beginning in 2020, GMs may select one new player to give underaged AHL status to before demoting them to the AHL (previously, it was two per season). Any underaged players without eligiblity on an AHL roster will either be given status (if a slot is still available) or otherwise returned to juniors. Underage AHL-eligible status cannot be transferred to different players and lasts as long as the player is underage (i.e. up to two seasons after being drafted). If an underaged player is traded, his status persists with his new team; GMs do not re-coup additional selections.

Since people seem to be misunderstanding this, even though I don't see any ambiguity:

You are not limited to one underager on your farm roster. You are limited to selecting one new underage exemption per season. They don't have to be from this year's draft; they can be from last years' if you want. You may have zero underage players on your farm, or you can trade for 20 of them and fill your lines with underagers. If you really want to, you can delay choosing your underager until later in the season and then trade for someone, although they would have to have been in the pros already because we don't explicitly allow recalling players from juniors and there's no mechanism to do it in-game.

[SharksGM]

I. Forward Positions

Once per season, GMs may request that a forward they own the rights to add (in rare cases of forwards with no existing secondary position) or change a secondary position to RW or LW, which will typically mean swapping a C/LW or C/RW to a LW/RW.

Added this, as promised.

[SharksGM]

G. Suspensions

A suspension is handed out for all intent-to-injure penalties resulting in injuries of two weeks or longer, at the rate of a one game per week of injury time (as listed in statistics.ehm), up to a maximum of 25 games.

I have clarified this rule because some simmers were under the impression that game-generated suspensions can be removed or shortened; that is not the case. This is simply the minimum suspension length; the game is free to generate longer suspensions, although it only rarely does so.

[SharksGM]

Goaltenders, both at the NHL and the AHL level, will not be permitted to play more than 67 games.

Clarifying this to say:

Goaltenders will not be permitted to play more than a combined 67 regular season games across all levels (pro and farm).