Market
The price of cap space
When a club retains salary in a trade it rents out cap room. This page prices that room in draft picks: the pick value that moved to the retaining club for each $1M of cap it carried per season. See also retained salary and trades.
- Retention trades on file
- 66
- Priced
- Deadline median
- Summer median
Ranges by window
Pick value per $1M of cap per season
The unit is expected career NHL games of the picks received. A window with fewer than five priced trades shows its count and no range.
| Window | Priced | With picks | 25th | Median | 75th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Summer (June to September) | 13 | 7 | |||
| Deadline (January to March) | 13 | 10 | |||
| In season (October to December, April) | 1 | 1 | Not on file (fewer than five priced trades (1)) | ||
Every priced retention
The trades behind the ranges
| Date | Retained by | Player | Per season | Seasons | Pick value | Per $1M-season |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-25 | PHI | Garnet Hathaway | $1.20M | 1.00 | ||
| 2026-03-06 | CGY | Nazem Kadri | $1.12M | 3.22 | ||
| 2026-03-04 | VAN | Tyler Myers | $1.50M | 1.23 | ||
| 2026-03-02 | CHI | Connor Murphy | $2.20M | 0.24 | ||
| 2026-01-18 | CGY | Rasmus Andersson | $2.27M | 0.46 | ||
| 2025-03-06 | NYR | Reilly Smith | $2.50M | 0.22 | ||
| 2025-03-06 | ANA | Brian Dumoulin | $1.57M | 0.22 | ||
| 2025-03-04 | BOS | Trent Frederic | $1.15M | 0.23 | ||
| 2025-03-01 | CHI | Seth Jones | $2.47M | 5.24 | ||
| 2024-12-14 | ANA | Cam Fowler | $2.50M | 1.65 | ||
| 2024-06-26 | OTT | Joonas Korpisalo | $1.00M | 4.00 | ||
| 2024-06-19 | CGY | Jacob Markstrom | $1.88M | 2.00 | ||
| 2024-03-08 | PIT | Jake Guentzel | $1.50M | 0.20 | ||
| 2023-06-27 | PHI | Kevin Hayes | $3.57M | 3.00 | ||
| 2023-06-24 | NSH | Ryan Johansen | $4.00M | 2.00 | ||
| 2023-06-06 | LAK | Ivan Provorov | $2.02M | 2.00 | ||
| 2023-03-03 | CBJ | Jonathan Quick | $2.90M | 0.23 | ||
| 2023-01-31 | VAN | Bo Horvat | $1.38M | 0.39 | ||
| 2022-07-13 | SJS | Brent Burns | $2.72M | 3.00 | ||
| 2022-07-11 | OTT | Matt Murray | $1.56M | 2.00 | ||
| 2022-03-21 | MTL | Brett Kulak | $0.93M | 0.14 | ||
| 2022-03-17 | MTL | Ben Chiarot | $1.75M | 0.16 | ||
| 2021-07-24 | UTA | Oliver Ekman-Larsson | $0.42M | 7.00 | ||
| 2019-07-20 | EDM | Milan Lucic | $0.75M | 4.00 | ||
| 2019-07-01 | COL | Tyson Barrie | $2.75M | 1.00 | ||
| 2017-06-17 | ARI | Mike Smith | $1.42M | 2.00 | ||
| 2015-07-01 | TOR | Phil Kessel | $1.20M | 7.00 |
Not priced: 39 (2 player not named in the statement; 32 cap hit and term not stated in an allowed source on file; 5 share retained not stated).
The pick curve
What a pick is worth in games
| Pick | 1 | 5 | 10 | 16 | 32 | 48 | 64 | 96 | 128 | 192 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expected NHL games |
A pick whose overall number is not stated is valued at its round's middle pick. Careers are counted from 1995-96; drafts after 2012 are left out because those careers are still running.