There’s optimism around the NHL announcing the upper limit for the 2025-26 season’s salary cap before the March 7 trade deadline, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet writes Thursday.
Doing so would allow teams significantly more advanced planning than they’re used to in several ways. Official numbers for cap changes usually aren’t announced until a few weeks prior to the new league year, meaning general managers would now have months instead of weeks to execute extension negotiations better. There’s also a chance that the league’s boom in hockey-related revenue coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic will allow them to announce preset cap numbers for the 2026-27 and potentially 2027-28 campaigns as well, Friedman wrote.
The current projection for next season’s salary cap laid out by commissioner Gary Bettman last month is $92.4MM, but better revenue projections over the past few weeks have added fuel to the fire of a significantly higher increase. Player agents have predicated an increase to as high as $97MM for 2025-26, Friedman wrote, a $9MM jump from this year’s $88MM ceiling.
Surging revenues are also putting more money into players’ pockets this season. Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reported over the weekend that the league has terminated escrow withholding from players’ paychecks for the remainder of the season starting Jan. 30, with current HRR projections indicating the “amount already withheld will also be returned in full following final season accounting.” Players are also set to receive the full amount of escrow they had withheld from their 2023-24 paychecks plus an additional 1.5 to 2% to maintain the 50-50 revenue split between players and owners.
As for negotiations on the next CBA, set to commence soon to prevent a lockout in the 2026 offseason, Friedman writes, “There’s also reason to be optimistic in CBA negotiations. If the financials are sorted out, what on earth could stop a deal?”
News of a significant cap increase comes ahead of a potentially star-studded 2025 unrestricted free-agent market that, for now, is still set to feature names like Mitch Marner, Mikko Rantanen, and Nikolaj Ehlers.
Wow…I must say a potential $9M dollar cap increase next season would have a huge impact on teams especially the contending teams. This definitely would play a key role in the trade deadline this season too.
I know for my team it would give them the potential to add another top 6 talent & to add some additional depth to their bottom 6 as well. No complaints here lol.
I guess only time will tell as we wait & see.
Rantanen gets his $14M x 8 !!!!!!!