Last year, we didn’t have to remember how the Holiday Roster Freeze works because the NHL season didn’t begin until January. This year as we continue on a normal-ish season, the freeze is on.
What is the Roster Freeze?
In concept, the roster freeze limits all player movement — trades, waivers, demotions, callups — over the Christmas break. In reality there are so many necessary exceptions, it rarely limits a teams’ choices.
There are three key dates:
- December 11, which we’ll get to in a minute
- December 19, which is when the freeze starts at 11:59 pm, so that is midnight effectively
- December 28, which is when the freeze ends at 12:01 am, so that’s midnight of the 27th effectively
The trade freeze is fairly solid ice, but the callups and demotions have a lot of exceptions to make running a roster possible.