1. Franchise Fee
2. Prize Money
A total of $1,400.00 in prize money will be awarded over the course of the 2026/27 season based on the breakdown outlined below.
i. In-Season Prize Money
ii. End of Season Prize Money
3. Team Composition
Each team will be comprised of the following:
Reserves: There are no restrictions placed on reserve player composition, i.e. reserve players can be from any position and may be substituted into your line-up as required during the season.
4. Point Scoring
i. Defencemen
ii. Forwards
ii. Goaltenders
5. Salary Cap
For the 2026/27 season, the RAHP salary cap will be $114.4 million ($104 million NHL salary cap + a 10% RAHP premium).
PuckPedia is the official resource for player salaries. Unlike the NHL, RAHP uses total player salaries, NOT AAV (Average Annual Value). In referencing a player's salary on PuckPedia, the official RAHP salary figure will be the amount listed on the salary summary page of the NHL team they are currently playing for. As a result, where applicable, any portion of a player's salary reteined by a previous NHL team would not be considered part of their RAHP salary.
For any unsigned players without a current NHL contract, the league minimum player salary will arbitrarily be applied as their salary against the cap. For the 2026/27 season, the league minimum salary is $0.85 million. The minimum salary will be adjusted in future years based on the following schedule:
2027/28 - $0.9 million
2028/29 - $0.95 million
2029/30 - $1 million
Should an unsigned player eventually sign an NHL contract, the league minimum salary would then be replaced with their actual salary for RAHP cap calculation purposes. Should the adjusted salary put the RAHP franchise rights holder over the cap, they would then be given 24 hours to make any moves necessary to correct this salary cap violation. Should the franchise be unable to get themselves back under the cap, they would then be subject to the penalties outlined at the end of this section.
It will be the responsibility of each franchise to ensure that they adhere to the salary cap for the entire season. In instances where a franchise is confirmed to be in violation of the salary cap, the following procedures/penaltes will be applicable:
Upon confirmation that a franchise is in violation of the salary cap, a penalty of 50 pool points will be imposed against the offending franchise. Since it isn't possible to deduct this point total from the actual Yahoo! standings, offences will be tracked manually. The offending franchise must then use available free agent credits and/or trades to get their team back under the cap within 24 hours of being notified of the infraction. Should the franchise be unable to bring their team back under the cap within this 24 hour period (or if a 2nd violation occurs during the same season), their roster is frozen and they are deemed ineligible to win any future prize money for the remainder of the season.
The 50 pool point penalty imposed for a salary cap violation will only be applied against the offending team's performance for prize winning categories during the current season. When conducting the process of determining the following season's draft order (see Section 17), the 50 pool point penalty will be disregarded and the offending franchise's actual point total from the Yahoo! standings will instead be used.
Should a cap violation occur during the pre season draft, the offending franchise will be given the opportunity to use availabe free agent credits to bring themselves under the cap without incurring the 50 pool point penalty. Transactions must be completed within 24 hours of the conclusion of draft day, otherwise the offending franchise would then be subject to the 50 point penalty
6. Protected Players
Each RAHP franchise will be required to protect a total of 12 players in advance of the draft. There are no restrictions, either by position or salary, for protecting players. In preperation for Draft Day, each franchise is required to submit their list of 12 protected players to commish@rahp.info as well as set their keepers in Yahoo! by the date deadline date provided.
Each protected player list submitted will be used to verify the accuracy of the corresponding keepers set in Yahoo!. Should there be a discrepency between a franchise's protected player list and keepers set in Yahoo!, the keeper list in Yahoo! will be updated to match the protected player list.
Any franchise who hasn't submitted their protected player list by the stated deadline will be subject to losing one free agent move for the upcoming season per day late. Franchises requiring an extension beyond the submission deadline due to extenuating circumstances must notify the comissioner via email (commish@rahp.info) for approval in advance of the submission deadline in order to avoid a late submission penalty.
In years when expansion franchises join RAHP, franchises will only be permitted to protect 10 players in advance of the expansion draft, with the final two protected players being selected after the expansion draft has been completed. See "Section 8 - Expansion Franchises" for more information regarding this process.
7. Free Agents
At the start of the season, each franchise will be given credits to acquire up to 8 free agents before the end of the season. A free agent is defined as any NHL player not drafted by a RAHP franchise. All free agent acquisitions must be made through Yahoo!, so only players appearing in the Yahoo! player database are eligible to be acquired.
8. Expansion Franchises
In years where expansion teams are granted, an expansion draft will take place as an means of best ensuring that new franchises are as competitive as possible upon entering the league. The expansion draft would occur on an agreed to date approximately 3-4 weeks in advance of the upcoming season's draft day and the process would be conducted as follows:
Each existing franchise would be permitted to protect 10 players. A spreadsheet containing all current franchise rosters and protected players would be distributed to each expansion franchise for reference when selecting their respective expansion franchise. All unprotected players from existing RAHP franchises, plus any other hockey player whose rights were owned by an NHL team prior to that year's NHL Entry Draft are eligible to be selected by an expansion franchise. No more then two players are permitted to be taken from each existing RAHP franchise and no more than one player from any single position, i.e. Expansion franchises couldn't select two forwards from Darren's Angels during the expnsion draft.
Each expansion franchise will select 12 players to protect for the upcoming season's main draft. Should there be more than one expansion franchise joining the league, an in-person or online draft will need to be conducted. The draft order will be determined by lottery and the draft order will snake, i.e. with three expansion franchises, Round 1 will be drafted 1-3, Round 2 will be drafted 3-1, Round 3 will be drafted 1-3, etc...
Following the expansion draft, each expansion franchise will then be slotted into the main draft order immediately following the three draft lottery selected positions. Should there be more than one expansion franchise, the order placement would be in reverse order of the first round of the expansion draft, i.e. with three expansion franchises, the team who drafted third in the first round of the expansion draft would be slotted into the 4th position of the main draft, the team drafting second would be slotted into the 5th postion and the team drafting 1st would be slotted into the 6th position. (See Section 16 for more information on the draft order process).
9. Draft Day
The 2026/27 RAHP Draft Day will take place starting at 11am on Saturday, October 3rd. Due to personal commitments in September, the draft will once again be exclusively conducted remotely using Yahoo! Live Draft. My hope is to one day return to the in-person draft experience that was once the lifeblood of RAHP, but there always seems to be something getting in the way of making that happen. Let's see what next year brings.
10:30am-11:00am - Pre-Draft Setup
Because the draft will begin @ 11am sharp using Yahoo! Live Draft, General Mangers are encouraged to start setting-up at 10:30am to allow enough time to sort through any potential personal technical issues that may arise.
11:00am - The Draft Begins!
i. Drafting Procedure
The draft will consist of 12 rounds based on the order provided in advance of draft day. See Section 15 for the methology in determining the draft order. Each GM will have up to a maximum of 1 miniute and 30 seconds per pick.
ii. Drafting Eligibility
Only players populated in Yahoo!'s Live Draft are eligible to be drafted.
2:30-3:30pm - We're done!
Based on previous years, unless something goes horribly wrong, the draft should be completed by 2:30pm. With that being said, should everyone take the full 1.5 minutes for each and every pick, the draft will be completed at 3:12. Factoring in a few additional minutes of time for other unforeseen minor technical issues, the draft will conclude by 3:30pm at the absolute latest.
iii. Post Draft Roster Check
It is the responsibility of each RAHP franchise to review their roster on draft day to ensure that they are not in violation of the salary cap. Should a cap violation occur during the draft, the offending franchise must notify the League Commissioner on the day of the draft. The offending franchise will then be given the opportunity to make trades or use availabe free agent credits to bring themselves under the cap without incurring any additional penalties. Transactions completed to remedy a cap violation must be completed within 24 hours of the conclusion of the draft, otherwise the penalties outlined in "Section 5 - Salary Cap" would be imposed.
iv. Future Draft Day Schedule
In an effort to avoid any potential conflicts with the Thanksgiving Day Long Weekend or Yom Kippur, both of which have the potential to land on the desired date for Draft Day (the first Saturday in October), the following tentative dates have been set for future years:
2027 - Saturday, September 25th
2028 - Sunday, September 24th
2029 - Saturday, September 29th
2030 - Saturday, September 28th
2031 - Saturday, September 27th
2032 - Saturday, September 25th
2033 - Saturday, September 24th
2034 - Saturday, September 30th
2035 - Saturday, September 29th
2036 - Saturday, September 27th
2037 - Saturday, September 26th
2038 - Saturday, September 25th
2039 - Saturday, September 24th
2040 - Saturday, September 29th
A reminder for the tentative Draft Day date will be provided in-year when the Draft Lottery results are emailed to the group. Franchises will be provided a review period in which to advise if they are unable to attend the draft on the date chosen and to provide alternative dates they are able to make. Every attempt will be made to accommodate a requested date change during the review period. Once the review period has ended, the finalized date will be announced.
10. Regular Season Hosting
The automated operation of the hockey pool will be hosted by Yahoo! Fantasy Sports.
11. Regular Season Trading
All regular season trades must be processed using the trade functionality on the Yahoo! pool management website. All trades must be made on a player-for-player / draft pick for draft pick basis directly through the Yahoo! pool management website.
Players and draft picks are the only commodities that can be traded. Free agent moves cannot be traded as the Yahoo! trade functionality will not allow for it.
Draft picks can only be traded for the following season and must be processed directly through Yahoo!. Should a franchise trade draft picks for the following season, they are financially committing themselves to pay the RAHP entry fee for that season.
The RAHP trade deadline for the 2026/27 season will be March 3rd, 2027. Although RAHP has traditionally tried to align the RAHP trade deadline with the same date used by the NHL, the Yahoo! pool management system has not allowed for this to happen. As a result, RAHP will now simply be selecting the latest selectable date option available in Yahoo!. After the trade deadline has passed, inter-franchises trades will no longer be permitted for the remainder of the season.
12. Free Agent Credits
Each franchise is given 8 free agent credits at the start of the season. These credits can be used throughout the year to release roster players to free up space to acquire free agents. Free agent credits cannot be carried over into the following season and cannot be traded.
13. Waiver Wire
During the season, any player dropped from a franchise's roster is immediately placed on waivers. During the waiver period, anyone in the league can claim the player by using an available Free Agent Credit. If more than one franchise claims the waived player, the one with the highest ranking on the Waiver Priority List is awarded player rights. The priority list is initially set based on the reverse order of finish from the previous season, however each time a waived player is added to a franchise's roster, that franchise is placed at the bottom of the Waiver Priority List. This "rolling" list stays in effect for the entire season. To find your current position in the waiver priority list, go to the Managers List on the RAHP League Overview page. If a player remains unclaimed after the waiver period expires, he becomes an unrestricted free agent and can then be claimed immediately by any interested party.
14. Yahoo! Max Games Glitch
The Yahoo! pool manager has a feature that caps the number of man games that each active roster player is permitted to play at 84, which expands to 504 defencemen games and 756 forward games. Although this feature ensures a level playing field, there is an unfortunate glitch that may impact one ore more franchises. On the day that a franchise reaches their max game total for either defencemen or forwards, Yahoo! will calculate the points for all active roster position players, regardless of the number of man games the franchise has available to use, which has the potential for that franchise to receive points that they technically shouldn't have received, as in the screen capture below:
Should a franchise receive points from man games beyond the allotted max man game total for defencemen and/or forwards, their end-of-season point total will be adjusted based on the methodology outlined in the example below:
15. Maximum Man Games Lost
Over the course of a single season, each franchise is allowed a maximum of 40 man games lost (which equates to 3% of the maximum possible games played per team). Any franchise finishing the season with greater than 40 man games lost will have their season point total recalculated based on based on the methodology outlined in the example below:
Should the point recalculation result in a point increase, the adjusted point total will be used to amend their position in the final league standings for the determination of their draft position for the following season (See Section 17). Should the point recalculation decrease a franchise's point total, the recalculated amount will be disregarded and their actual point total will stand.
16. Tie Breaker
If there is a tie for first, second or third place at the end of the season, the tie will be broken by the franchise with the lowest total number of games played. The second tie breaker will be the team who scores the most goals. The third tie breaker will be the team with the most goalie wins. The fourth tie breaker will be the them with the most blocked shots.
17. Determining the Upcoming Season's Draft Order
For the most part, the draft order for the upcoming season will be based on reverse order of the RAHP Standings from the previous season. The two exceptions to this rule are outlined below:
1. Draft Lottery - A draft lottery will be used to determine the top three draft positions. The bottom 6 franchises from the previous season's final standings will also be awarded enteries into the draft lottery based on the following breakdown:
14th Place - 25 entries
13th Place - 21 entries
12th Place - 17 entries
11th Place - 14 entries
10th Place - 12 entries
9th Place - 11 entries
In addition to the bottom six franchises, any RAHP franchise who meets the following two conditions will be awarded up to 10 bonus draft lottery entrries:
(1) Did not win any prize money during the previous season
(2) Missed less than 10 man games during the previous season
The number of bonus draft lottery entries awarded will be based on the following formula 10-x, where x = the total number of man games missed.
2. Teams in Violation of Maximum Lost Man Games Rule - See Section 15 for an explanation of this rule and how it can potentially impact a franchise's draft position. After any necessary adjustments to the league standings due to violations to this rule have been made , the bottom six franchises, plus any franchise(s) awarded a single draft lottery entry, will then participate for a chance to win one of the three available draft lottery positions. The 2027 Draft Lottery will be conducted during the first week of May and will be updated here once announced by the NHL. The website draftpicklottery.com will be used to conduct the draft lottery. After the three draft lottery positions have been awarded, should there be any expansion franchises joining the league, they would be slotted into the draft order next, followed by all other franchises, in reverse order of the RAHP Final Standings from the previous season. 18. Off-Season Activity RAHP is a 365 days a year league. Off-season trading is both allowed and encouraged. From the day after the deciding game of the NHL Stanley Cup Finals to RAHP's Draft Day, the salary cap does not exist. The rules for off-season are the same as in the regular season (See Section 11). All off-season activity must be e-mailed to richard@swellenterprises.com for tracking purposes and to notify the league, since Yahoo! is offline then.