Waiver Wire and Drops

The waiver wire

Any NHL player who isn't currently on a team in your league is on the waiver wire — they're free to claim from the Free Agents or Player Search views inside the app. Picking one up adds them to your roster, counts as a roster change against your monthly limit (see Monthly Roster Changes), and adds their cap hit to your team's salary obligations.

A few things to be aware of when claiming:

• Position limits and salary cap apply at the moment of pickup. If the claim would push you over your league's configured cap or breach a position limit, the move is blocked until you make room first.
• Drop-on-pickup is an option in some leagues — your commissioner can require (or allow) you to pair every free-agent pickup with a same-transaction drop, so your roster size stays constant.
• Approval workflow — leagues that enable free-agent approval will route your claim to the commissioner for a yes/no before the player actually joins your roster.

All of these behaviors are commissioner-configurable in League Settings (freeAgentApprovalRequired, faDropOnPickupDefault, freeAgentValidationEnforced) — what you see in your league might differ from another league you're in.

Immediate drops

The simplest drop is immediate: select a player on your roster, confirm the drop, and they leave your team right away. Their cap hit comes off your books, their roster slot is freed, and they return to the waiver wire for any other manager to claim.

Immediate drops count as one roster change against your monthly limit, and like all roster moves they're recorded in the RosterChange history — you can always see who you dropped and when from the change log.

Scheduled drops

Scheduled drops let you commit in advance to dropping a player on a future date — useful when you want to lock in a roster decision before a specific event (a trade deadline, the start of playoffs, the next month's reset).

The system uses two records: a ScheduledDropDate (set by the commissioner, defining when a scheduled-drop window applies) and a ScheduledDropSelection (set by you, naming the player you want to drop on that date). When the date arrives, the system automatically executes the drop on your behalf.

Some practical notes:

• Commissioner control — scheduled-drop dates and the whole feature toggle (scheduledDropsEnabled) are set per-league. Not every league uses them.
• You can change your mind — until the date arrives, you can update or remove your selection.
• Cap and limits at execution time — the drop runs against your roster as it stands on the scheduled date, not when you set it up.

Immediate vs scheduled — which to use

| Situation | Best fit | |---|---| | Player you no longer want, available cap/slot room | Immediate drop | | Player you'll drop only if a specific condition lands (trade falls through, etc.) | Schedule it, cancel later if needed | | End-of-month or seasonal roster cleanup | Scheduled drop on the cutoff date | | Emergency cap-clearing for a free-agent pickup right now | Immediate drop, then claim |

The two tools are complementary — use immediate drops when you've already decided and want the cap relief today, and scheduled drops when you want the option to back out before the date hits.