How can Junior Hockey Players go to the NHL/AHL and come back and play Juniors?

Question

Like Claude Giroux played 2 games for the Flyers and 5 for the AHL team but he came back and play Juniors. What are the rules to this?

Answer 1

As long as a player has junior eligibility left, he can play junior, there are no rules against it.

Once a player has played 10 games at the AHL/NHL level, he completes a year in his professional contract (which only means that he can reach UFA status earlier) and teams try to avoid that (they want to hold onto a player as long as possible).

There is a rule in place however that prevents a player from being called up and down (also known as the Joe Cirella rule because as a 19 yr old, Joe Cirella was called up 7x from junior) more than twice.

Jonathan Bernier played in the NHL this year before ending the season in junior

Shawn Matthias played a few games for Florida this year before being returned to junior.

Steve Mason was called up on an emergency basis.

Since none of the players (Giroux included) played 10 professional games, their contracts are still intact

During the lockout, Jeff Carter played an entire season of junior after spending some of the previous year with the Philadelphia Phantoms of the AHL (their entire playoff run)

Answer 2

You can play a few games in the NHL before being returned to your junior team, I think the limit is 10 games; after that you are stuck in the professional leagues