The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Hart Levine Provides a Deadline 101 Tutorial

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

Hart Levine joins for a Trade Deadline 101 masterclass, breaking down the rules around trades, salary cap mechanics, retention slots, LTIR strategy, and more. Don’t forget to subscribe and join the conversation below.Leave a voicemail: https://www.speakpipe.com/TheSheetEmail us: [e-mail] TO OUR SPONSORS!!👍🏼 Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/👍🏼Uber Eats: https://www.ubereats.com/caReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@FNBarnBurner🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoffReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you're watching any of our shows, you see the Puckpedia trade deadline tracker running underneath all of it. The curator and the conceptual genius behind Puckpedia is Hart Levine for a little trade deadline contract 101. Hartlevin joins us here on the sheet. Hart, how are you today, pal? I'm doing great. How are you guys doing? We're doing well. You sleeping at all lately?

I know that around July 1st, hours are at a premium for you. What's it like for you a trade deadline? Just ready to go. I'm at the starting line, ready for the gun to go off. We're waiting for some action here. All right. Well, Greg was griping about double retention before you came on. How do you feel about it?

Does it hinder general managers too much? I really, that was the one CBA change where I was wondering, why did this happen? Like, teams seem to like it. Agents didn't seem to have a problem with it. It sounds like the head office, NHL head office didn't like it. But that certainly puts a thaw on the trade action because now, now you can only get a player down to 50% instead of 25%. So, you know, we said that we talked about this at the time.

It's another way to reduce trade activity. What I was told about it was that some of the misgivings that the owners had was it still incentivizes bad teams to stay bad and essentially play bank for the NHL. Like, oh, the big boys will make the big moves and they'll go. go win the Stanley Cups and the coyotes of the NHL are going to play bank for everybody. That's what I was told about. And they wanted, they wanted to sway that.

If you look at it, though, the teams that were like those brokers, they were doing it at the trade deadline at 25% for a few months. So it's not like there was, you know, Arizona wasn't doing it for three years as a, as the broker, right? They were taken on the, the zombie, you know, Robita Island type contracts, but they weren't being the third party retainer for that long. So it was a few months. I don't, yeah, I don't really buy that one. Greg. Hi, can you, can you get into the, here's something that I want to get out there in a hockey

101 way. Can you explain the actual cap space the teams have at the deadline vis-a-vis the accruement of money and do it in a way that you can get it into a two-minute soundbite and make sense of it to the people at home? And then, and then, Hart, when you're done inside of maybe three minutes, can you discuss the influence of religion on history? Okay, I'll tackle Jeff's one. That's easier.

Okay. So the way that the NHL salary cap works, everything is prorated for the number of days in the season. So we talk about occurring, but it's really, it's not actually occurring. It's just the way that, you know, hopefully you paid attention to fractions class in school. it's the way that fractions and per rating work. So this season, there's 192 days. Every day a player is on the roster counts for one out of 192. So if a team has, let's say, $10 million of cap space that they're tracking to have,

which we would call projected cab space, halfway through the season, if they add a player, they're only going to be counted on their cap for half of their cap it. So let's say they have $10 million of space. Halfway through the season, you could add a $20 million player because they're only going to take half of that and that would be the 10 million. As we get to the trade deadline, let's just say about a quarter of the season remaining. So again, if a team has, let's go back to, let's say, two million of cap space, right? They could add an $8 million player because if you take 8 million times, you know, 25% of the season remaining,

they're only going to be charged 2 million against that new team's cap. So that's the basic version. That's for teams under the cap. When we get into LTIR, that's a, that's, you know, cap 102 because that there's no prorating when you're in LTIR. But for teams under the cap, That's the way it works. You look at their cap hit that the player has, knowing that you're only going to be applying about 20 to 25% of that. And so on the site, we show projected cap space,

which is where the team is projecting to finish with. But we also show current cap space, which is the easier way of looking at it. That's how much annual cap hit a team could actually add. So on deadline day, you would see a team has 2 million of projected cap space. They would have 8 million of current cap space. That's because they could take 8 million of annual cap hit on that day.

Everybody got that? How'd I do? Okay, good. I mean, listen, a couple of things here, I wish I would have paid more attention if I knew I was going to cover sports like this. I wish I paid more attention instead of dropping out of grade 11 math. But two, like this has like opened up a whole new field. Like the minute the salary cap came in, like it opened up a whole new field for, well, first of all, like you look at all the people. Like every team needed to employ a capologist to sort all this out for the manager.

managers. A philosophical question here for your heart. One thing I'll get back to what Greg is asking about and players too, but just like the nature of running a hockey team, right? So coming out of the locker, like all of a sudden, someone like Brandon Pridham, who's now the assistant GM of Toronto Maple Leafs,

became a really important person in the NHL. Right? And so he was sort of in charge of, I don't want to say babysitting, because it sounds insulting, but essentially babysitting some teams whose managers had a hard time understanding the cap and what it meant and the ramifications of it and how it can be massaged. Now, I know that

there are some changes and tweaks to the new CBA that we've seen, but basically, this is a salary cap that goes back to 2005. You know, this is still salary cap with the training wheels on. And I've wondered if, if slash when, we're going to get to a place in hockey where the training wheels come off. And we start to play around with the salary cap a little bit more. And there are different, whether it's, you know, we've always talked about, you know, certain hometown, hometown discounts for players. If you're drafted by the team, you have a discount on your salary cap, et cetera. I know it can get convoluted, but something along those lines.

Do you think we get there anytime soon? Like, it's going to, like, the cap will continue to evolve to reflect the next. nature of the sport. Do you think we get there anytime soon, based on your conversations with either managers or agents who are a big, you know, a leader of fuel in all of this? Well, I mean, you mentioned history earlier. I think we just have to look at history. We look at other sports. The NHL was the last of the major leagues to get a cap or luxury tax system. And if you look at those other sports, every CBA, they get more and more complicated. And in those leagues, teams don't have one cap guy. They have teams of people that are their

cap department like in the NFL um you know there's a whole department in the NBA a whole department uh NHL now we're at the stage where every team obviously has one there's a few teams that might have like a second or like a half like half of a person's time is on it we're still a long ways from from those other leagues and and you just look at this last CBA they added a playoff cap they made the LTIR rules more complicated they made the rules on emergency exception when a team is short um that's a whole i had I'm going to have to make a whole other spreadsheet to calculate all that They made it way more complicated. So now my personal mission, and I was, you know,

had a secret campaign last CBA to make the CBA simple again. I think it's way too complicated. There's like eight different ways to calculate someone's age. And I think LTR is way too complicated. Like it's important part of understanding the game. It shouldn't be that hard for a fan. And honestly, there's a lot of people in front offices that don't know all the intricacies of LTAR

because it's just way too complicated. So my personal platform, and I'll be campaigning again in four years in the next CBA, is to make the CBA more simple, but that's not the way that it's going. It just keeps, they take, it's a Frankenstein. They take the last version, and they just keep adding more adjustments to it,

and it just keeps getting more and more complicated. Okay, so let me throw one example historically. They don't throw this over to Greg and get your thoughts on it, if there's one thing in this spirit that concerns you. So Rick Dudley with Florida, you guys remember when he tried the draft Alexander Ovechkin and cited his, cited leap years, the leap years,

and that's why he was actually available. Okay, so like, Nice try. Good, good shot at it, but sorry, Duds. You're not going to get Alexander Ovecichkin in the draft. Is there something, is there anything in the CBA or something that you come across, either with frequency or without frequency, heart, that you look at and say, you know what, it will probably never fly, but I wonder if this is an area of vulnerability

or a potential loophole that's out there. Like, listen, it took a while for, you know, salary retention to become a loophole that managers exploited. Backending contracts, which led to the Kovachak drama situation. Then we started to hear things like, oh, it's the spirit of the CBA, even though it's not actually in there. It's the spirit of the thing. Is there anything like that that you look at and go, hmm, I wonder about this. Is there something there? Yeah, there's a couple with the new rules that came in.

I think that are, you know, people like me looked at it and seemed pretty obvious. One is with the playoff cap, it's the players that are dressed for the game. So why do you need to dress an expensive backup goalie for the playoffs, right? Dress your third goalie for league minimum. And then you can potentially have a, you know, more impactful roster. Obviously, if someone gets hurt or a goalie gets hurt, that you might pay for it. But that's unlikely. So that's an obvious one.

The other one is with the double retentions. And this is something, you know, we've talked about. about a little bit in the past, but the rule of double retention is it has to be 75 days between retentions. And also, kind of related to LTIR, the limit of LTIR benefit you get is that 3.82 or the last year's average salary. So let's say you have two teams that have players that they want to dish at the deadline, but they're going to need double retention. Or let's say you have two teams that have LTIR guys that earn out for the whole season but are more than 3.82. Why don't those types the teams link up, make a trade, right? And then they're set up to work together and kind of

together that would work better. So like, let's say two sellers, let's say a Vander Kaine was traded for, you know, name, Dougie Hamilton 50% 75 days ago. Now those new teams could then trade them at the deadline at another retention, right? And so that could be a way for teams to kind of work together. You have to plan an advance on that one. And with the LTR one, again, let's say there's players that are over the 3.82, you can see two LTIR players getting traded for each other, potentially with some retention, and you can kind of add up 3.82 times two,

and you're not getting that limit. So I think it would require some cooperation, which isn't always easy to do among rivals, but those are a couple areas where I think there's an opportunity. And I'm sure that as soon as someone does that, then the league will put a memo out saying that's no longer allowed. No, all of a sudden cooperation, well, you know what will happen, guys? cooperation will turn into collusion.

And we can't have that here. Can't have that. Casa Blanca. I think the postseason cap is really messing with teams. I mean, like, you know, there are probably some teams that are in LTIR situations that don't want to rule out their guys because, quite frankly, their guys are going to be better than whatever they bring in. But it does mean they can't bring anything in.

And so I guess the first question hard is, you know, how much impact do you think that's having on the trade deadline, this notion of like, hey, we're going to have to start our third string goalie if we go out and acquire extra money at the deadline. And then B or two, are we, I had one manager say the end result of all this is going to be a better postseason. Like, you're going to have a more even landscape than you would if Vegas or Tampa or any of these other teams were able to do their usual shenanigans. So what say you about the postseason salary cap? Well, I groaned when you said it's going to lead to a better postseason.

I don't know. That seems like, you know, wishful thinking that these rules that they came up with are going to make things better necessarily on ice. But I guess it's possible. In terms of teams planning for it, they're definitely like they have to be planning. Here's what our playoff lineup might look like. Would that be cap compliant? I mean, we added the projected playoff cap hit for teams on the site,

both like with the lineup for the next game and in our puck GM, you can play with it. And I know right away there were some teams reaching out saying, oh, thanks. Now we're using this to play with our rosters because there are some complexities to the calculations. So teams have to look at it. But we should just remind people, the playoff cap, it's only the 20 dress players. So it is different than the regular season where the cap, you're counting all the scratch players, the injured players. So if you think about it, like if most teams are carrying 23 to 25 guys during the regular season, And you're kind of freeing up at least like, you know,

two to four million just by not having those guys on your, on your playoff cap number. So it's not to say that it's going to completely like remove deals or breaks deals. To me, the type of team that it really would impact is the LTIR player that's out for the regular season and comes back in the regular season and, you know, assuming that maybe that bumps someone off the roster. And also the teams that accrue a bunch of space, so they built up a lot of space and then they spend it all of the deadline.

Well, again, there's no prorating in that playoff cap. So back to our example at the very beginning, they get an $8 million player that's only going to take up $2 million on the regular season cap. That playoff cap it is full $8 million. So those are the types of teams that are going to be impacted. So again, it's not everybody, but we're starting to chip away at, you know, the double retention is limiting teams with no cap space. Now we're talking about teams that accrued a bunch that maybe don't feel like as confident spending it. So we're starting to chip away at the types of deals that can be made. You know, the team for me, let's focus on teams here for a couple of stuff.

The team for me that is, I'm really curious about based on the cap space they have or lack thereof and their need to do probably something significant is a team that Greg and I just talked about and that's the Edmondson Oilers, who are down to like, you know, taking their empties back and lifting up cushions, right? To try to try to find cash to bring in players. Is that the team for you that you look at and you say, based on what I think they might do here, I'm really curious how they're going to, you know, untie the Gordian knot that is their salary cap. Is Edmonton the obvious one, or is there some other ones that you think about? Yeah, I mean, Amitin's a good one.

Like they made that Connor Murphy trade yesterday. They had to wait until after 5 p.m. Eastern, so they could send Howard back down to make room. He got an extra $4,000 in his pocket for being on the roster on paper that day. So good for him. But yeah, that's how tight they are. $4,000 prop.

Exactly. So, yeah, they have to move Monjeepani. I mean, I guess it's possible. They take someone else off the roster, but most of those guys have trade protection or they need them. So it really looks like it's Mongey and we'll see. I always overestimate what I think a team is going to have to pay for to get off a bad contract. Like I thought that moving the LTR contracts like Carrie Price and Shea Weber and those would cost,

Ryan Ellis would cost more and that usually doesn't. So let's see. So I would be so I would expect that they're let off the hook easier than you might expect from Mongeypani. Oh, go ahead, Joe. I was going to say one of the things that I wonder. about speaking to that is I'm always curious about the I'll give you my problem if you take my problem no no no no salary I know we're looking at Edmonton and saying like okay is the guy with Manjapani and sometimes because we're so involved in this every single day and no one more

than you heart who like go right down to the to the to the decimal point on all these contracts I really wonder if we're missing something potentially big here and it might be just one of those like I can remember like Dallas and Montreal a million years ago doing the the headache for headache problem. You take Ribeiro, we'll take Nina. Like, let's just, we can't do anything with this guy. You can't do anything with that guy. Let's swap and see if the new change of scenery helps.

That's what I wonder about here. Teams we look at that have a tiny little bit of caps a space, we think it's small moves, but really big moves are still possible. As long as you're saying like, okay, we have no use for this guy. You have no use for that guy. Let's swap and see what happens. So the type of trade that let I think about when you, bring up those types of examples is a team that is going to use LTIR and a team that is not using LTIR

and wants to save some cash. So a team like Emmettin, for example, now they have Yanmarker and LTIR, they're using LTIR. They could take a player from a team that is on LTIR or out for the season, going to be out for sure. They could take him and stick him on LTIR and it really then has no cap impact. And in exchange, they could send back a player like maybe Mange-Japani that has less cash on his contract, right? So that's what we saw Tampa do with Brent Seabrook many years ago when they were in cap trouble. They took the trade for Brent Seabrook. Again, it was that adding Seabrook was kind of like a cap neutral move, but they were able to move,

they were able to move someone off the roster to free up the space, right? So that's the type of team. And speaking of Tampa, like that's someone I look at and also being creative. They're always creative. Right now we show them as just over three million of cap space, but they have Nick Paul and LTIR. And if he gets activated, they're basically down to zero space. and they're always very creative. So, yeah, that's always a team I watch for.

And then on the opposite side, Carolina, they have a lot of space. They're always in the mix. They're always doing creative things. And so, you know, I always bet on them to do something that makes us say, oh, that was a savvy or smart move, or at least they want us to show, they want us to see that they're smart kind of move, right? So I wouldn't be surprised that Carolina is going to weaponize that cap space in some way. Because, again, cap space you can't take it home with you to next year.

And a team like Carolina knows how to make it. work. I'm banging the Adam Fox to Carolina drum. Come on. Bring it full circle, baby. Adam Fox and Dougie Hamilton. All the old thing. Yes. So my last question for you, Hart, and if you don't have an answer for this,

that's fine because I'm just fishing here. I'll make one up to. Is there one? Great. A man after my own heart. The heart, I just, pardon. I was going to say, I resisted. I resisted. Just the one of indicate that I resist.

Thank you, Jeff. Is there one team whose cap situation you think is on the road to sort of like an Armageddon? Like, is there one team that's kind of a ticking time bomb where maybe it's the young guys that are going to come up soon or the contracts they already have on their books? I know this is a difficult question considering how high the cap is going. But is there one team you're looking at that you're like, this could be the one that's like in the red for the next couple of years? On our big board kind of thing. That is a good question. Well, I mean, the types of teams, when you say that make me think are teams with lots of big name young players that are all going to need new deals soon.

So that's like the obvious to me is like a San Jose, Anaheim, maybe Chicago. You know, they have to plan that out and be careful. You can do that by staggering some of the terms. You know, maybe that you bridge a couple guys. But those would be the types of teams that I see, you know, potentially having an issue. And then also Minnesota, I mean, like they have some space, but especially if they sign a Quinn Hughes long term, they want to be aggressive. They can be pretty tight going forward. And I think that's why you're seeing like a wallstead.

Maybe they proactively move him for a big asset now because pretty soon he's going to need a good deal with his contract or with his performance. And you've already got a guy locked up long term. So I would take those kind of young teams with all the first round picks or very, very high first round picks coming into the lineup plus a team like Minnesota. Just to see Hold on Hold on Do you guys kind of feel like Minnesota is doing too hard

Of a sell with Quinn Hughes I feel like this is like By now they should know Like they should know Like they don't have to be the team That lets them go on the tonight show Like they should know by now And I feel like

There's still this like Heavy courtship happening with Quinn That makes me as a Devils fan excited That he might not actually stay in Minnesota So let me So my follow My follow up to that is so. Hold on, Jeffrey.

Hold on, Jeffrey. If it's Fitsy, then he's going to go to Nashville. Because my pet theory right now is that Fits won't be fired. He'll transition to a new job with the Nashville Predators and then the Devils will have a new general manager. How do you like that, Merrick? That's my new pet theory. Wasn't he the first captain of the Preds? He was. He has history there.

And you and I both know, or all three of us know, the next guy that, the next guy that, that takes that Nashville job will have experience as a general manager in this league. I'll tell you what. You know what? You know what? It's even the threads, maybe. I would want, and every single time that they win a game and when they finally make the playoffs officially, and if they dare win a series, you know who that all looks good for?

And I'm talking about the Buffalo Sabres, Kevin Adams. That is the better Buffalo does. do you not think that maybe a team like Nashville will go like that's how because Nashville's rebuilding. Nashville is going to rebuild this thing. If you're Kevin Adams, do you not walk in there and go, since December this has been the best team in the NHL?

That's all my work. Jeremy Kekillian hasn't done things. What if Jeff, what if the sheet is, you built the sheet up, then you leave and the ratings sore, would you say, that's like for sure?

Yes. would you say, hey, as soon as they left, the radio is stored. But here's the thing. All you got to do is hire me for five years here, Bill Haslam. And then when I leave, you'll win the Stanley Cup. But in the meantime, I'll pick up large for five years. Everyone would take credit for that. I'm sure somewhere out in the world, Brian Dunkelman's like, you know what?

I'm responsible for American Idol as the co-host of season. I look, you know what took credit for the Jay's World Series runs. But hey, hey, Hart, quick, quick sidebar. Do you like how Merrick just dropped his pants and took a shit all over my Tom Fitzgerald to the Federer's idea? And all of a sudden, he's just like, no, it's going to be Kevin Adams. Like, what happened? I thought I had a really good idea. It's going to be Rob Blake.

It's going to be Rob Blake as GM and Shanahan goes in as president or something or something like that. How about that? Or maybe New Jersey, or maybe New Jersey. Here's my final question. Again, theoretical, theoretical. But maybe you've let your brain go here before. I would imagine someone like you, Harton, do. doing what you do.

Maybe you've probably let your sort of brain dance away on this question. What are the things that I wondered about? I remember asking Bill Daly about this back in 2005 and he shot it down fast. Like no effing way. But I've always maintained like that's not a money outside of the system situation and there's still salary linkage. So there should be no problem with trading cap cash. If you're a team that has excess cap at the end of the season. and are at trade deadline.

I don't know if you've ever thought about this. If you're like, pick a team, the Pittsburgh Penguins, hey, we'll trade you $3 million of our cap space. The money will still be captured in the system. I'm going to still be accounted for. Nothing is outside the system here. What would the issues around that be if you've thought about that? And could this be a way of taking the training wheels off,

the salary cap and the CBA, as I mentioned about half an hour ago, here with you? Well, to answer your first question, my brain does start dancing in all kinds of directions. I have to try and keep it within the line so I don't get off track. But, well, sure, that's a cool idea. But you think the guys that brought you no double retention are going to bring trading caps.

Not at all. Because they'll bring up the same. No, that's what I think. They'll bring up the same example of, oh, it's just a way to keep bottom teams at the bottom. They'll just essentially keep moving their cap space. I think, yeah, I think it's a great idea. I think if there's a great idea.

I think if there ever is going to be a kind of adjustment to the firm system that we have now, the most obvious one would be some sort of exception where a team resigning their own player gets some benefit, right? Not just the term, but in the NBA, they call it the bird rules, right, where you can sign that. The resigning team can sign for more years and longer and more money. To me, that's the one thing where you could maybe see some agreement. Again, it's got to count against the player's share in some way because it can't be money outside the system. but encouraging teams to keep their players, have the fans, make that connection to the player.

Again, I don't think now where we are with the term limits, I don't think like that one extra year is really all that valuable, especially as we're seeing players, the high-end players want to take shorter deals because they can make more money that way. So to me, at some point, if there is like a tweak, that's a major tweak, it's going to be that, or some kind of benefit or less cap charge for resigning your own player.

Well, you're talking about building into the system a way to reward teams for running their teams correctly and successfully. I don't know, man. This entire system is built to punch those teams. I don't know what, as much as possible. I don't know what sport you're thinking about Mr. Levine. You're right. Yeah, I blew it.

You're right. That's an excellent point. Good counter. Thank you, Mr. Levine. That will be all. That's not how we do things here in hockey. Reward teams to running themselves properly. You're the best, pal.

Look forward to work with you on Friday. Hart Levine from Park, Pagia. Thanks guys.