Speculation: The 50 contract limit - how can you reduce it without trading?

[Riptide]

Both the draft and the rules regarding entry-level contracts already prevents this from happening.

Neither of those prevent teams from signing young UFAs - kids who were passed over in the draft and coming out of juniors or who were more of a late bloomer in college or Europe. The only thing that stops a team from signing a ton of these kids is the 50 contract limit. This means they have to pick the best options which leaves players for other teams to consider who wouldn't otherwise be there if there wasn't a limit on how many contracts teams could have.