What Is An Entry Level Slide?
When a player on an entry-level contract is 18 or 19 years old1, their entry level contract is slide eligible. This means their team may choose to return them to junior and avoid using a year of their contract. In this case the contract slides. The net effect is that the term length of their contract doesn't start. There are still cap implications for each impacted year.
Exception : A player who signs an entry-level contract at age 19, and then turns 20 before Dec 31 of that year is not slide eligible
1 For slide eligibility, the player age is based on September 15th of the contract signing calendar year.