The CBA Change That Makes The Holiday Roster Freeze More Significant
While the official trade deadline in the NHL isn’t until March 6th, there is an earlier trade deadline of sorts with the annual holiday roster freeze. During that time, while a limited number of NHL-AHL roster moves can be made, trades are a no-go from December 20th through December 27th. While this can spur the odd move including last season, it typically comes and goes without much fanfare.
But things are a little different this time around. In the new CBA, there are restrictions on teams retaining salary on a player whose salary has already been retained on. Put in the new CBA to seemingly quash the three-team double-retention trades that became quite commonplace in recent years, a player must spend 75 in-season days on a roster before they can be moved with retention again.
While most of the CBA won’t come into effect until mid-September when the current agreement officially ends, this is one of the elements that was brought into play a year early. As a result, if a team wants to acquire a player with salary retention and still be able to move that player with retention before the trade deadline, they have to get the deal done before the 20th. Otherwise, while the acquiring team can still flip that player before March 6th, they won’t be able to retain salary to facilitate that move.
While there aren’t a lot of defined sellers at the moment, there could be some potential buying teams out there who might be interested in taking a look at a player while leaving themselves some flexibility to move the player later on if he’s not a fit or they fall out of the playoff race. Having the ability to retain in that scenario would make the player more valuable so it wouldn’t be surprising to see an uptick in trade talks as a result.
Last year, there were a trio of trades made before the roster freeze, headlined by the Kaapo Kakko trade to Seattle, but none of them involved salary retention. We’ll soon see if this rule change spurs on a more active trade period by Friday or if it will come and go more quietly as it often does.
The Importance Of October 6th On The NHL Calendar
Generally speaking, October 6th is not a particularly important day in the NHL. It’s either a day late in the preseason or early in the regular season, depending on when the campaign gets underway.
However, that’s not the case this year. First, that is the day that season-opening cap-compliant rosters need to be submitted to the NHL as it’s the day before the regular season starts. Accordingly, any players who have to clear waivers and be sent down before those rosters are due will have to be on waivers no later than Sunday, allowing for them to clear (or be claimed elsewhere) at 1 PM CT on Monday. Accordingly, expect the waiver wire to be even busier than it has been in recent weeks in advance of a busy Monday afternoon for teams to get their opening rosters submitted.
Meanwhile, there is a second deadline on October 6th this season. It also represents the deadline for players to sign contracts that contain salary deferrals. A practice used a little more frequently in recent years (Toronto and Carolina have more than one player with this) in order to lower the cap charge, it was removed in the CBA extension that comes into effect next September. However, parts of the new Memorandum of Understanding will be in play earlier, including this one. With October 7th being the start of the regular season schedule, any deals with deferred salary have to be registered with the league no later than Monday.
With a few contracts of significance signed around the NHL in recent days (Kirill Kaprizov, Luke Hughes, and Jackson LaCombe, in particular), some fresh comparables have come in for teams and agents to work with. That could push a few more deals across the finish line in the coming days with some players preferring not to have discussions extend into the regular season.
But if an agreement can’t still be reached, salary deferral is a mechanism that could allow the player to get a certain amount of total money in a contract while allowing the team to keep the cap charge at a particular number, allowing both sides to get what they want. That is, assuming that the player is willing to wait until after the expiration of the contract to receive some of the money, something that isn’t overly popular. But with the deadline to utilize this particular mechanism now just a few days away from being outlawed, it wouldn’t be surprising to see upcoming contract talks revisit this option to try to get a deal across the finish line. If some prominent pending free agents are amenable, there could be an uptick in activity on the extension front by October 6th.
Evening Notes: Laine, Salary Cap, 84-Game Schedule
Montreal Canadiens winger Patrik Laine has a path to more minutes this season, after averaging a career-low 14:18 in ice time last season. Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes met with Laine to discuss areas he could focus growing in to earn a hardier role in the lineup, shares Sportsnet’s Eric Engels.
Laine finished the season with 20 goals in 52 games, but Montreal was also outscored 17-to-26 when Laine was on the ice at even-strength. Questions about Laine’s effort outside of the defensive zone have existed since his rookie season, but it’s hard not to imagine those are the attributes the Canadiens would like to see more. Finding an added step towards opponents in the defensive zone, and winning more battles in the dirty areas of the ice, would go a long way towards helping the 6-foot-4 Laine fit in with an otherwise undersized top-six. Laine reached the 30-goal mark in each of his first three seasons in the NHL, and could be a real X-factor in the Canadiens lineup should he take the necessary strides.
Other notes from around the league:
- NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly elaborated on upcoming changes to the league’s use of long-term injured reserve in an interview at the NHL’s pre-season coaches/GM meeting. He received many questions on the league’s new rule that playoff lineups must be cap-compliant. That includes one from Engels, who asked if there would be exceptions made for players working back from injury who are game-time decisions. Daly did not have an answer, other than to say that the league will answer that question in the future. The Stanley Cup playoffs are eight months away, allowing for plenty of time for the league to continue sorting out how they want to carry out changes to the CBA.
- More light has also been shed on the league’s upcoming shift to an 84-game schedule, set to begin in the 2026-27 season. With that expansion, the season will be slated to begin in late-September and end in mid-June, per Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic. The shift to an earlier start to the season will be welcomed by many hockey fans, though a heavier workload will keep the season’s end tight to the NHL Draft and start of free agency on July 1st. That will be bittersweet news for many, especially NHL front offices, who have recently urged for a longer break between the end of the season and start of free agency.
Bill Daly Talks Schedule Changes, CBA Talks And Effectiveness
Some NHL executives and players were in Milan, Italy, last week as part of the league’s yearly media tour – this time in the place the league will be sending its players to the 2026 Winter Olympics. Deputy commissioner Bill Daly was part of the contingent there and sat down for an interview with Michael Russo of The Athletic, discussing some items that have been left unaddressed from last month’s Collective Bargaining Agreement extension and Memorandum of Understanding approval.
One of the key changes in the agreement is a jump from an 82-game regular season schedule to 84. That will take place beginning with the 2026-27 campaign, and Daly essentially confirmed that means an earlier start date – with regular-season games now potentially beginning in September.
It’s not as if there was another direction to go. More in-season breaks and elongated playoff scheduling in the later rounds have made for some exceedingly late finishes to the season in recent years, leading to key events such as the Stanley Cup-clinching game, the draft, and the opening of the following season’s free agency period taking place in a sub-two-week period.
“I think that 82 to 84 games is going to be beneficial to both sides,” Daly said. “It comes in connection with a shortened training camp. I think that can help us on our overall calendar length. I think we’ve started our regular seasons earlier as a general matter and our playoffs earlier, which some of the media have suggested we should.”
The other most forward-facing change in the new MOU is, for the second decade in a row, a reduction in maximum contract length. After the 2012 lockout ushered in an era of eight-year extensions and seven-year free agent deals, those caps are both decreasing by a single year in the new agreement.
That was arguably the league’s highest priority entering negotiations with the NHLPA alongside the LTIR reform that also got achieved, Daly said. “We’re in a situation where we have a number of contracts that are entered into for maximum term, with the parties recognizing that the player’s not going to be really worth what the contract will pay him in the out-years of the contract. So, the more purely monetary benefits of longer-term contracts are kind of scaled back a little bit. That’s really the benefit.”
Previously, excessively frontloaded contracts were retroactively penalized with a recapture penalty. That was an exceedingly rare thing to trigger, though, and only happened if the player decided to retire and walk away from their contract instead of failing physicals and remaining on LTIR for the duration of their career. Along with the term reduction, there have been more safeguards put in place in the new MOU to restrict year-to-year variations in compensation in multi-year deals, but chopping off a year to spread the total package across will be the most effective way to reduce the number of artificially lowered cap hits and AAVs league-wide.
As for when all these changes take effect, the previous presumption was that none of the new policies announced last month would be enforceable until September 15, 2026, when the current MOU expires and the new one begins. That won’t necessarily be the case, Daly said, although NHLPA assistant executive director Ron Hainsey had previously confirmed that the current contract term limits will still be in effect for the 2026 offseason and won’t be reduced until that September date.
Nonetheless, Daly clarified there will be multiple stages of implementation regarding all the changes laid out in the MOU. “I don’t want to presuppose their approval, so I’m not going to answer the question specifically. But it does deal with every item that we agreed to as part of the memorandum of understanding. One bucket of items will go into effect as early as this year. One bucket of items will go into effect as of July 1 of next year — so, the league year, the full league year. And then there’s a list of items that don’t go into effect until Sept. 16 of next year.“
Arbitration Schedule For Remaining Cases Finalized
The arbitration hearing dates for the few remaining unsettled cases have been finalized, PuckPedia reports:
F Kaapo Kakko, Kraken: July 25
G Arvid Soderblom, Blackhawks: July 28
F Maxim Tsyplakov, Islanders: July 29
D Dylan Samberg, Jets: July 30
D Conor Timmins, Sabres: Aug. 2
F Nicholas Robertson, Maple Leafs: Aug. 3
D Jayden Struble, Canadiens: Aug. 3
There are only seven out of this year’s initial 11 player-elected arbitration cases still without a resolution as the hearings approach. Winnipeg had three of the players on that list and has settled with two of them, reaching a two-year, $3.7MM settlement with Morgan Barron and a substantial six-year, $45MM deal for Gabriel Vilardi.
The Ducks also had two arbitration cases on that list, but settled with both of them in the past few days. Depth defenseman Drew Helleson got a two-year, $2.2MM contract, while emerging star goaltender Lukas Dostal signed a five-year, $32.5MM deal.
There were two team-elected arbitration cases this year, the Sabres’ Bowen Byram and the Mammoth’s Jack McBain, but both have been settled.
As for the seven players above, they can continue talks with their clubs on a new deal until the hearing begins. After that, they’re bound to the arbitrator’s decision.
Players who reach an arbitration hearing are only eligible to sign a one or two-year contract. Since the player filed for arbitration in all seven cases above, the team gets to choose the contract length after receiving the arbitrator’s decision on the AAV. However, only Robertson, Soderblom, and Struble would be eligible for two-year contracts. Everyone else is one year away from being eligible for unrestricted free agency status, so they can’t receive a multi-year arbitration award.
If the arbitration award exceeds $4.85MM in any case, the team can decline it and allow the player to become an unrestricted free agent.
Snapshots: Drouin, Hoefenmayer, CBA
Winger Jonathan Drouin elaborated on what led him to sign with the New York Islanders in a Thursday night appearance on NHL Tonight. He shared that it was the makeup of the team’s offense, the coaching staff, and the Islanders’ all-around culture that led him to a move across the country this summer.
Drouin spoke specifically to each point, sharing that his relationships with winger Anthony Duclair and recent assistant coach hire Ray Bennett, and head coach Patrick Roy, all heavily influenced his decision. Drouin played against both Duclair and Roy many times during his days in the QMJHL, from 2011 to 2014. He was also coached by Bennett in each of his last two seasons with the Colorado Avalanche.
Drouin also noted that seeing the Islanders’ honoring of Matthew Schaefer‘s mother at the NHL Draft was an additional nod to how well the club treats its players. With multiple positives laid out, New York will land a winger who managed 19 goals and 56 points in 79 games in 2023-24, and 37 points in 43 games of the 2024-25 season. He missed a significant portion of the mid-season with a lower-body injury, but worked back to full health before March. He will step into a hardy, top-nine role in New York’s increasingly crowded forward group.
More notes from around the hockey world:
- After being non-tendered by Montreal last month, unrestricted free agent defenseman Noel Hoefenmayer has signed a one-year deal with HK Sochi, per an announcement on the KHL team’s Telegram page. The 26-year-old spent time with AHL Bakersfield and Laval last season, notching 21 points in 43 regular season games while also suiting up for Canada at the Spengler Cup in December.
- PuckPedia highlights a couple of changes of some significance in the recently released CBA Memorandum of Understanding that comes into effect for the 2026-27 season. There is now a 10-day in-season PTO option with the signing team getting the right of first refusal if another team tries to sign that player. Meanwhile, the post-deadline regular recall limit of four has been expanded to five, giving teams a bit more flexibility roster-wise after the trade deadline. Our Josh Erickson will be doing a Q&A about the MOU next week; you can submit your questions for that here.
Evening Notes: AHL/CHL Agreement, NHL Draft, Signing Rights
Earlier today, Scott Wheeler of The Athletic indicated that the newly ratified Collective Bargaining Agreement may include language that would amend the current minimum age stipulation in any transfers from the CHL to the AHL. Although Wheeler wasn’t entirely correct, he wasn’t far off.
Frank Seravalli later clarified the initial report, stating that every NHL team can place at least one 19-year-old on their AHL affiliate, while maintaining the minimum age of 20, generally speaking. Seravalli added that 18-year-olds will remain ineligible for the second-highest league in North America.
Unfortunately, this new rule won’t change anything for a few years. Since the new CBA doesn’t begin until the 2026-27 campaign, this means that none of the players selected in the 2025 NHL Draft will be eligible for AHL competition, at least for this season.
Additional evening notes:
- According to Sportnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the league isn’t expected to return to a centralized draft in 2026. Still, Friedman warns that votes are pending, but all signs point to agreement on holding a decentralized draft again next summer. Given that no public surveys have been performed, generic online canvassing indicated that the NHL has some changes to make for next year’s production in the fans’ view.
- In another update from the new CBA, PuckPedia reports that there’s a change regarding a player’s signing rights once drafted. The team will own a player’s signing rights for four years if the player is 18 years old, and for three years if they’re 19 years old. It’s important to note that the changes won’t begin until after the 2027 NHL Draft, the first draft after the new CBA comes into effect.
NHL, NHLPA Ratify Four-Year CBA Extension
July 8th: According to an announcement from the league, the NHL and NHLPA have officially ratified the four-year CBA extension. The agreed-upon governing document will last from the 2026-27 season to the 2029-30 season.
June 27th: In a pre-draft press conference, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman shared that the league has agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding with the NHLPA that, when ratified, would cement a new, four-year CBA, per David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period. The new CBA would begin in the 2026-27 season.
June 26th: As expected, all signs indicate the NHL will avoid another lockout. According to multiple reports, the NHL and NHLPA are closing in on a four-year extension for the Collective Bargaining Agreement. In a comprehensive breakdown, which our readers are encouraged to visit, Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reported some of the more important items mentioned in the upcoming CBA.
Since the new CBA that was ratified in 1995, each NHL team has played an 82-game season, with 41 games at home and 41 away. That will no longer be the case. Due to player concerns about the extended pre-season schedule, the NHL will implement an 84-game schedule starting with the 2026-27 season, likely featuring 42 home games and 42 away games. The pre-season will be shortened to four games, and Seravalli notes that any player who’s accumulated 100 or more games at the NHL level will only be allowed to participate in two of those contests.
Additionally, this will be the last year that a team can re-sign or extend a player on an eight-year deal. Seravalli reports that players re-signing with their current team will be limited to a maximum of seven years, while contracts signed during unrestricted free agency or through offer sheets will be capped at six years. This could have bigger implications this summer, with more teams potentially scrambling to sign their current players while retaining the ability to add another year.
Meanwhile, to address arguably the most important and, objectively, the most-publicized issue, the NHL will create a ‘comprehensive playoff salary cap mechanism’ to close the LTIR loophole. In recent years, some playoff-bound teams have placed injured players on LTIR during the regular season, providing them with additional salary cap space to acquire higher-priced talent at the trade deadline. Most of these cases have been investigated and subsequently cleared by the league. However, the NHL is continuing its investigation into the Edmonton Oilers’ use of LTIR with Evander Kane leading up to the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Lastly, of the large-scale updates, the league confirmed the projected salary cap upper limits for the upcoming three seasons. The cap will rise to $95.5MM in 2025-26, increase by approximately 9% to $104MM in 2026-27, and by another 9% to $113MM in 2027-28.
Seravalli added several other additions to the upcoming CBA. Drafted players’ signing rights will be uniform across the board until they’re 22 years old, the elimination of deferred salary, and the establishment of a permanent emergency backup goaltender who will travel with the teams.
CBA Notes: Minimum Salary, LTIR, Draftees, Salary Retention, Olympics, Neck Guards
Earlier today, league Commissioner Gary Bettman announced a Memorandum of Understanding between the NHL and NHLPA for a new agreed-upon Collective Bargaining Agreement beginning in the 2026-27 season. New details continue to emerge regarding the new agreement, one of which is regarding minimum salaries.
According to Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff, the league minimum salary will jump from $775K in 2025-26 to $1MM in 2029-30. Seravalli didn’t know if there would be a mild year-on-year increase for the minimum salary, just where it would end up by the time the next CBA ends.
Although the NHL hasn’t projected an upper limit of the salary cap for the 2029-30 season, it marks an odd relative dip in payment for league-minimum salaries. Assuming the cap continues to rise at its current pace of 9% each season, the upper limit for the 2029-30 season would be approximately $134.8MM. This means that a $775K salary in 2025-26 would account for 0.8% of a team’s cap hit, while a $1MM salary in 2029-30 would drop to 0.7%.
Other notes from the new CBA:
- One of the biggest points of contention was the playoff implications of LTIR. The CBA includes a new salary cap for the playoffs. However, according to Seravalli, teams will only benefit from cap savings equal to the previous year’s average salary, rather than the full cap hit of the player. The only exception to this rule is if the player does not participate in the entire Stanley Cup playoffs.
- Seravalli also pointed out the new draftee signing rules in the upcoming CBA. A team will hold the signing rights for four years on any 18-year-old that they draft tonight, and three years for any 19-year-old selected. Additionally, for those playing in the NCAA, their signing rights will only expire 30 days after they’ve confirmed with their drafting team that they’re no longer playing at the collegiate level.
- According to TSN’s Pierre LeBrun, the new CBA will mandate a 75-day window of allowable salary retention. In essence, the new rule effectively eliminated three-team trades at the deadline. If a team wants to orchestrate 75% salary retention on any given player, they’ll need to wait nearly 11 weeks to do so.
- It’s now confirmed that NHL players will be included in the next two Olympic Games. According to TSN’s Chris Johnston, the new CBA includes language allowing the players to participate in the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps region of France.
- As a new equipment rule, Seravalli announced that the NHL will make neck guards mandatory for any new player entering the league in the 2026-27 season and beyond. The new equipment rule is no doubt inspired by the late Adam Johnson, who tragically lost his life after getting cut in the neck by a skate in an EIHL game during the 2023-24 season.
Bettman/Daly Notes: CBA, Olympics, AHL
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly held a joint press conference ahead of the first game of the 2025 Stanley Cup Finals. They touched on a variety of league topics, most notably sharing that the league continues to progress well towards a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the NHL Players’ Association. The pair shared that CBA negotiations are in “good shape” per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic adds that they weren’t yet ready to call the deal close to final.
The NHL is a year out from needing to finalize a new CBA. Early momentum could point towards minimal changes in the next agreement, though the league did comment on a few potential changes. Daly and Bettman said they weren’t concerned about tax differential influencing player’s signing decisions. Later, NHLPA Assistant Executive Ron Hainsey shared that the league could reform the long-term injured reserve to avoid late-season manipulation. Both topics have grown to a roar over recent years, in light of repeated success for the Vegas Golden Knights and the pair of Florida-based teams.
Other notes from Bettman and Daly’s presser:
- Daly confirmed that the league isn’t expecting Russia to participate in the 2026 Winter Olympics. The country was previously barred from participation at the 2024 Summer Olympics, though athletes were still able to participate under the category of “individual neutral athletes”. Russia’s Men’s Hockey team took home silver at the 2022 Winter Olympics, and gold in 2018, though the NHL did not send players to either competition. With this news, fans will have to wait even longer to see Russian stars take on Olympic competitors. The last time that superstars like Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin appeared at the Olympics was in 2014. Russia achieved a fifth-place finish that year.
- Daly also shared that the league is considering opening AHL eligibility to teenagers in the next CBA, per Ryan Kennedy of The Hockey News. The Deputy Commissioner added that the NHL is discussing the change with the NHLPA, and has given advance notice to the CHL – though the dialogue is ongoing. Junior hockey is presently under a monumental shift after the NCAA expanded collegiate eligibility to CHL athletes. Early winds from the decision appear to be pushing major juniors to a younger demographic – momentum that would only seem to grow should the NHL and AHL give players even more options after their draft years.