I recently was texting with an ECHL coach about what he expected from a game that night. It was three hours before puck drop, and he sent me his lineup – and then the opposing team’s.

This threw me for a second.

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I come from an old-school era in which coaches would play mind games when it came to lineups. You didn’t know with absolute certainty who’d be starting in net until it happened. 

Coaches would jumble their lines during warm-ups, even put defensemen at forward, just to confuse the opposition. You might not get final scratches until 10 minutes before the game started.

This sort of trickery – common when I covered the International Hockey League and United Hockey League in the 1990s and 2000s – were great fun but have become infrequent. I knew this. But freely sharing information like lineups, well, that took me aback.

Apparently, coaches exchange lineups 1-3 hours before games. I felt foolish for not knowing this, but if I, someone who walks in this world, didn’t know that, then I started wondering what other interesting things were going on behind the scenes in the ECHL that other people didn’t know.

But before I get to that, let me delve into this lineup issue.

Last season, there were numerous instances in which teams would dress an extra player in warmups. Sometimes it simply was, justifiably, to see if an injured player was good to go, but other times, it was gamesmanship. 

A coach who did that told me last week that even in those situations, he’d send the opposing coach a general lineup, including line combinations. (For what it’s worth, the ECHL pretty much eradicated dressing an extra player during warmups when they bumped the lineup sizes from 19 to 20 players this season, while keeping the active roster – those allowed in warmups – at 20).

As much as I clamor that all ECHL teams should post line combinations on their social media accounts for all to see, I would have thought coaches didn’t want anyone knowing anything unnecessarily until the very last minute. 

I mean, this is hockey, where a busted ankle is called a “lower-body injury,” if they even choose to be that accurate, but to learn some coaches let each other know who’s on the second power-play unit in advance of a game? That blew my mind, yet the coaches I asked about it said they didn’t feel they were giving away any sort of advantage.

As best as I can determine, this practice of lineup sharing started within the last few years. No one is quite sure who started it, or why, but the coaches agree it probably was because there really aren’t any secrets about lineups anymore.

“Everyone does it, so I guess we just do it, too,” one laughed.

“There is no advantage to be honest,” another said, “You send your lineup to the opponent 60 minutes prior to the game because you will not change yours either.”

That coach did acknowledge seeing a goon unexpectedly in the opposing lineup might be the one situation where a team might want to pivot in one direction or the other. But how often does that happen? 

The reality in the ECHL is there aren’t many surprises when it comes to lineups and tactics, and you can blame technology. 

Coaches have the ability to watch every game played in the ECHL through FloHockey, and most have advanced scouting programs that give them line combinations, which players are good or bad in various situations and film at the ready of those situations.

“I haven’t watched warmups in six years,” one coach told me, “And prior to that, I would never miss one because I needed to get the (opposing) lines.”

So, what else goes on behind the scenes in the ECHL people may not realize? Here are some good ones:

Contracts Restructured All The Time

A coach recently remarked to me how much his players liked being together on the same roster, to the point that some took take pay cuts to keep their rosters intact.

This set off an alarm bell to me because I had just assumed the Professional Hockey Players’ Association wouldn’t have allowed in-season contract restructuring to make it into the collective bargaining agreement with the ECHL. 

What would prevent a team from signing a slew of high-priced players for training camp and then say, “Look, turns out we don’t have enough cap room. Take some pay cuts, or we’re cutting you.”

As it turns out, restructuring contracts is perfectly legal. And here’s the kicker: A team is allowed to restructure contracts on their team 52 times per season, according to the ECHL office.

That seemed like a staggering number to me, but then you do have to consider how many players come and go in any given season because of AHL call-ups, injuries, moves to overseas teams, going back to college and so on. 

In the grand scheme of things, and since we’re talking about a few bucks trimmed from the roster here or there to get under the salary cap, maybe restructuring contracts isn’t such a big deal.

Affiliation Friday 🤝🏼 @TheAHL 🤝🏼 @FloHockey

The 2024-25 season marks the 1st year that the @Knight_monsters have been the affiliate for the NHL's @GoldenKnights and the AHL's @HSKnights. Their already proven success is seen on and off the ice. pic.twitter.com/DsHWc8XuY0

— ECHL (@ECHL) December 6, 2024

NHL/AHL Player Discount

I’ve written this one before, but I still find it mind-boggling. 

Players in the ECHL who are contracted to NHL or American Hockey League teams count only $525 a week against the ECHL team’s $14,600 salary cap, regardless of their actual salaries. Those players, therefore, count $5 less than the minimum weekly salary of a rookie ECHL player.

So, that means a No. 1 NHL draft pick making, oh, $1 million for the season, would only count $525 against the weekly cap, and the ECHL team doesn’t even have to pay his salary. But a solid rookie just out of college and on an ECHL contract could cost $620 a week, and that contract isn’t guaranteed. Wild.

Players Turn Down Call-Ups

It’s pretty common to talk about a good ECHL player and say something like, “He’s so good, I can’t believe he hasn’t been called up.” And a common refrain is: “There’s probably a reason. Maybe he’s bad in the locker room.”

You might be surprised to know that players routinely decline call-ups. One player told me he declined 10 offers last season.

Players have various reasons for declining call-ups, such as wanting to stay near family or not wanting to abandon teammates jostling to make the postseason, but the biggest reason is they don’t want to leave the ECHL to just sit in the stands for an AHL team to have extra bodies. They also often know they’ll be asked to play a style of game – perhaps a checking role – they don’t feel is an ideal fit.

Of course, it’s easier for an older player to say no to an AHL team, especially if they’ve already had a taste of the AHL, but don’t assume just because a player with great stats hasn’t been called up that it has something to do with his character. That’s sometimes the case, but it’s often not.

ECHL teams generally have no say in whether a player gets called up. Even if a team wanted to somehow block it – and I hear unfounded rumors of this all the time – the AHL team typically goes through the players’ agents, and it wouldn’t even work. And if an ECHL team did somehow get a reputation for blocking someone from getting called up, they’d have a tough time signing players in the future.

TRANSACTION : Demetrios Koumontzis has re-joined the #Steelheads on an @ECHL contract! Welcome back Komo 👏https://t.co/QziV98dA7z

— Idaho Steelheads (@Steelheads) December 10, 2024

Players Don’t Always Get To Use The Sticks They Want

The ECHL has a partnership with Warrior, so ECHL players are required to use Warrior sticks. But there are exceptions.

Five players per team on NHL/AHL contracts can use whatever sticks they want.

That still leaves a large number of players who might prefer to use another brand, and we all know hockey players can get pretty picky about their equipment.

Funniest Term I’ve Heard In Awhile

Last season, defenseman Jake Johnson was coming off a particularly good game for the Fort Wayne Komets, scoring a goal and going plus-2, and exclaimed that he hoped his teammates might cool it for a bit with references to him having “The Green Jacket.”

I hadn’t heard that before, and as a former competitive golfer, it cracked me up.

Of course, this is a reference to The Masters; the player most under par in pro golf’s most famous tournament wins and gets a green jacket.

In hockey, minuses are bad – they go to a player if he’s on the ice when his team allows an even-strength or short-handed goal, whereas, a plus goes to a player if his team scores such goal – and that’s why Johnson’s teammates were ribbing him about his “Green Jacket” because he was minus-5 through 13 games.

I’ve asked around, and apparently, this is a term used in hockey locker rooms now. Hilarious, even if plus/minus is a very flawed stat.

Johnson, by the way, has five assists and a plus-2 rating in 16 games this season for the expansion Tahoe Knight Monsters.

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