League Notes: Deferred Compensation, Expansion, LTIR, Neck Guards, And More

NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly sat with reporters yesterday as part of the NHL’s ongoing media tour in Vegas, including Michael Russo of The Athletic, answering various administrative-type questions.

Given its usage in a pair of max-term extensions handed out by the Hurricanes this summer, deferred compensation was a popular topic of discussion. It’s likely to be a topic of discussion during upcoming Collective Bargaining Agreement talks due to a “long-term big-picture fear” of teams being able to use deferred compensation for cap circumvention purposes, Daly said. But in the interim, it’s not a notable concern because of specific interpretations of the CBA the league shared with the Hurricanes and the NHLPA earlier this summer, ones he thinks “will continue to be binding until we renegotiate over it.”

Daly admitted deferred compensation, in general, isn’t something the league is in favor of, saying, “It throws out of whack some of the other checks and balances we have in the CBA, which forces interpretations in terms of how we allow it and what’s permissible and what’s not permissible.” He continued, saying, “The original deferred-comp rules were developed in a non-cap world as opposed to in the cap world, so they kind of were inherited, and so they probably need adjustment on some basis going forward.”

There’s plenty more from Daly and Russo:

• When asked about expansion, Daly continued the NHL’s recent public position that the expansion process isn’t active. He did, however, hint that expansion south of the border will be a priority when talks do start up again in earnest. “We’re at 22 U.S. markets when the other professional sports leagues are basically at 30, 31 markets,” Daly said. “So that means there’s market availability, which I think helps.” Daly also said the league doesn’t have an “imminent” concern about talent dilution with a growing base of teams.
• Daly said that most of the league’s general managers want the league to consider making “some kind of adjustment” to teams utilizing long-term injured reserve to carry playoff rosters that come in well above the regular-season salary cap. “Some of the [ways to address it] that have been kind of thrown around in the media wouldn’t necessarily be fair or the best way to approach it, I think, because of the way we do accrual accounting. So you can pick up an expensive contract at the end of its term and your cap only gets charged a certain amount. But all of a sudden if that $1MM, say, you assume becomes $5MM on Game 1 of the playoffs and you can’t play that player as a result, I’m not sure that’s a fair result because teams complied within the rules.“
• Daly also hopes that neck guards will become mandatory in the NHL “on some basis” soon, following the lead of other North American junior and minor leagues in the wake of former NHLer Adam Johnson’s death from a skate laceration to the neck while playing in England last year. He said the league had already proposed a mandatory rule not approved by the NHLPA. Still, he added the league “clearly understand[s] where the union is coming from and some of the difficulties they have with their constituents.”
• The league has yet to sign off on the final documents confirming their players’ participation in the 2026 Winter Olympics but expects to do so during the Global Series games between the Devils and the Sabres in Czechia next month. “Certainly, from the NHL’s perspective, I don’t see any real gating issues from finalizing those documents,” Daly said.