The 2025-26 NHL season is the last one under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, which has been in place since the 2012 lockout and was extended/modified in 2020. The relationship between the league and the NHLPA has been on solid footing since the latter appointed former U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh as its executive director, and reporting throughout the past few months indicated negotiations on a new CBA were expected to go smoothly, avoiding the fourth work stoppage of commissioner Gary Bettman’s tenure.
CBA talks started at the beginning of April and are “well underway,” NHL deputy commissioner told Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic in a recent phone interview (article link). Daly added waiting until the expiry of the current agreement in September 2026 to announce a new CBA is “well beyond the window that I’m thinking… I would like to think that we’ll have a successful conclusion at some point in the not-too-distant future.”
Unsurprisingly, Daly wasn’t eager to divulge too many details about what the agreement will actually look like. However, he did highlight some areas in which to expect significant changes from current operations when pressed by LeBrun.
The storyline dominating this round of CBA talks was always going to be the future of rules regarding long-term injured reserve usage, particularly teams being able to add notable injured players to the postseason roster after they spent the entire regular season giving their club cap relief while on LTIR. Daly confirmed that it’s been a central point of discussions with the NHLPA and that “we’ve made progress toward getting to a good resolution on that issue.” What that resolution looks like – either a playoff salary cap or postseason roster eligibility restrictions based on regular-season LTIR stints – is unclear.
On the topic of expansion, Daly clarified the league’s position that they’re not close to adding a club and don’t plan on opening a formal expansion process. While the league isn’t soliciting bids, the current approach is “much more of a one-on-one conversation and relationship we have with various potential owners,” Daly said. He also called the watering down of talent by adding too many clubs “not even a minor concern” in the league’s eyes, given the game’s skyrocketing registration numbers in the United States and in Europe.
And while the league hasn’t officially put pen to paper on the agreement to send its players to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, that’s purely been due to timeline and procedural issues. Daly reiterated “definitively” that NHL players will participate in the event for the first time in 12 years, and the plan to run World Cups of Hockey every two years between Winter Olympics remains in place.
AHL third liners today are better than NHL fourth liners from 1990 when it was 21 teams.
There are ECHL goalies better than a good portion of the shooter tutors who tended NHL nets in the 80’s. Half of Gretzky’s goals as an Oiler looked like a kid shooting on his dad who was letting him score.
Curious if you believe all that, how is 66 the number of the best? Majority of his points came against those shooter tutors
Finally a league that understands the importance of doing actual negotiations BEFORE it expires. That’s actually quite refreshing.
What about the “no state tax” issue? I’m surprised that isn’t a main issue. Playoff format also deserves some discussion.
@multiplemiggs – No discussion in that interview on any tax-related items. Here was Daly’s brief blurb on playoff format:
“Yeah, so the way I would answer that is at any point in time on any issue, there can be discussions between the NHL and the NHLPA, but I will say that with respect to this particular issue, it hasn’t even been raised or discussed as part of our (CBA) discussions with the Players’ Association. Look, we have our own view with respect to the merits to the current system. There does not appear to be agitation on the players’ side about that format.”
taxes don’t matter if the team has a winning culture, plus highly-taxed states typically are very wealthy
@Josh – Don’t you wish someone could’ve reminded Daly that the agitation is from the fans’ side. Maybe they need to see half-empty barns after giving the paying customers the finger. Unfortunately, reality says that most NHL venues won’t have that happen, if for no other reason than the giveaway tickets to corporate types.
My thought on LTIR. Take what the cap is for 1 team and divide it by 82. For the current USD $88,000,000 cap, each game is worth about $1,073,170. Now take each player’s cap hit for the season and divide it by 82. Let’s use a player that has a $4,500,000 cap hit as an example. His cap hit per game is $58,878.
For the playoffs, you have $1,073,170 available for players each game. You have 6 guys in the 4.5 mil range playing, so that eats up about 330k of that. Now you have 2 guys making 12.5 mil. That’s going to take up about 304k now for 8 guys, your sitting at 634k of you 1.073 million dollar game cap. Now you have to fill in the rest of the roster, so you have to start making some choices if you went and picked up someone at the deadline.
Not sure how this would work for black aces and such, but it seems more fair than Kane, Kucherov, Stone, etc waiting until game one of the playoffs to appear. There might be some roster limits and such that would be needed. No movement periods etc.