ELCs are not sliding (for AI only?)
 

I'm noticing every free agency has a ton of top prospects in UFA that appeared to be unsigned. However, after a while I noticed that they seem to be players that signed an ELC after the draft and played all 3 years in CHL. The contract didn't slide so once those 3 years were up the AI didn't re-sign them, and they end up UFA.

I do not know if ELCs are failing to slide for me too, I haven't noticed it but also wasn't looking for it.

Checking it in some of my test saves, it seems to have worked properly in every case I look at. Is that a standard or custom game, and can you show me his full transaction history?

Sorry didn't realize you had responded! It's a standard game. I hadn't thought to check his transaction history, but it appears he was released that year. I assigned his rights back to them (commissioner mode) so that's why he re-signs with them anyway in 2026.

I've done a few saves of FHM and top prospects going to UFA early is common, so I'll check around next time to see if they were also released, but I have to imagine they were.

Took a bit of a break and started a new save this week. In 2024 there were six 3.5+ star prospects in UFA at age 20/21. All of them were loaned to CHL and then released. This was the first season that I noticed this.

Here is a link to the save file

(sorry for large images, forum wouldn't let me upload any more attachments so I had to use imgur)

2025 UFA

https://i.imgur.com/6iU5eSv.png

2026 UFA

https://i.imgur.com/Erx46Sn.png
https://i.imgur.com/OsLuH66.png

Can you upload that save (instructions here)? I'd like to have a look at exactly what's going on there, I can't seem to replicate this in tests.

Sure thing, I've uploaded it to the FTP server as "2022-05-15-prospect-ufa.lg.zip". It's at 2024 UFA and in theory you should be able to sim to 2025 and see the same prospects I saw in 2025 UFA.

Interesting that you haven't been able to replicate it as I think I've seen this in every FHM8 save I've done. The only thing I do that's perhaps out of the ordinary is play in commissioner mode. However, the extent at which I use it for is editing player position attributes, forcing the odd trade, and re-assigning the rights of these prospects to their rightful teams. I also play on macOS, if that ends up mattering at all.

I hate to bump but have you had a chance to take a look at the savefile yet Jeff?

Yeah, I had a look. It seems to be an issue with a few players running into a specific series of events: they get signed to an ELC, are loaned back to their junior team normally, but then for some reason, at the start of their overage season, they don't return to the NHL team but instead remain on the junior team's roster. Then, at the end of that season, the routine that releases all the players aging out of major junior catches them and they're released as if they had been contracted to the junior team.

Normally, NHL-contracted players won't be sent back to junior as overagers, so the last one is working as intended; the problem is in their failure to be returned to an NHL roster in the offseason of their 19-year-old year. Haven't been able to figure out the cause of that yet, since it's not happening consistently (most players in that situation are returned properly), but I'm going to be keeping an eye out for this when we get to the testing and bug-fixing stages for 9.

Awesome, thanks Jeff. Looking forward to 9!