NHL trades come with their own vocabulary. These are the terms you’ll run into most often across the site, in plain English.

Trade

A transaction in which two or more NHL teams exchange assets — players, draft picks, the rights to a player, cash, or some combination. Every trade on the site lists exactly what each side gave up and received.

Draft Pick

The right to make a selection at a specific point in a future NHL Draft. Picks are valuable assets in their own right and are frequently traded, sometimes years before the draft they belong to actually takes place.

Round and Overall

The NHL Draft is split into rounds, with each team selecting once per round. A pick’s "overall" number is its position across the entire draft — so the 33rd overall pick is the first selection of the second round in a 32-team league.

Conditional Pick

A draft pick that only transfers, or whose value changes, if a defined condition is met — for example, a team reaching a playoff round, a player appearing in a certain number of games, or a player re-signing. Until the condition resolves, the pick’s final destination is uncertain.

Future Considerations

A placeholder used when the return in a trade is not finalized at the time of the deal. The "considerations" are settled later and can take the form of a pick, a player, or cash. It often appears when teams agree on the framework of a trade before the exact return is known.

Retained Salary (Salary Retention)

An arrangement in which the team trading a player agrees to keep paying a portion of that player’s salary against its own salary cap. Retaining salary makes a player easier to move and is a key lever in many deals, especially at the trade deadline.

Player Rights

The exclusive ability to sign a particular player, which can be traded even when the player is not currently under an NHL contract — for example, the rights to a drafted prospect or to a pending free agent.

Loan

A temporary assignment of a player to another club, common with players moving to or from leagues outside the NHL. The originating team typically retains the player’s rights.

Cash Considerations

Money included in a trade, either on its own or alongside other assets. Cash is sometimes the entire return in a minor transaction.

Compensatory Pick

A draft pick awarded to a team as compensation under league rules — for instance, for the loss of a player or the failure to sign a previous selection — rather than one acquired through a trade.

Forfeited / Voided Pick

A pick a team no longer has the use of. A forfeited pick has been surrendered or stripped under league rules; a voided pick is one that, due to its conditions, ultimately never conveyed.

Ownership Chain

The full sequence of teams that have controlled a single draft pick over time. Because picks can be traded repeatedly, the ownership chain shows the path from the pick’s original owner to whoever ultimately uses it.

Trade Partner

Another franchise a given team has completed trades with. A team’s most frequent trade partners can reveal long-running relationships between front offices.

Two- and Three-Team Trade

A trade involving more than two clubs. In a three-team trade, assets can flow in several directions at once; the site lays out what each team sent and received so the full deal is easy to read.