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NHL, NHLPA Ratify Four-Year CBA Extension

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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

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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

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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.

Daly: NHL, NHLPA Have Made “Good Progress” On CBA Talks

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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.

Snapshots: Robertson, Dorofeyev, Bastian, Okposo

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A key Stars winger is getting closer to returning to their lineup.  Head coach Peter DeBoer told reporters including Lia Assimakopoulos of the Dallas Morning News that Jason Robertson has been upgraded from being out week-to-week to out day-to-day.  The 25-year-old had his third straight season of at least 80 points this year, hitting the mark exactly but suffered a leg injury in the final game of the regular season.  Robertson has been skating away from the team alongside injured blueliner Nils Lundkvist (who is still a long way from returning from shoulder surgery) and it appears he is progressing well in his recovery.

Elsewhere around the hockey world:

  • The Golden Knights were without winger Pavel Dorofeyev for tonight’s game against Minnesota and he is listed as day-to-day, relays Jesse Granger of The Athletic (Twitter link). The 24-year-old had a breakout year, tallying 35 goals in the regular season but left Tuesday’s game late due to an undisclosed injury.  Victor Olofsson returned to the lineup to take Dorofeyev’s spot on the wing.
  • Speaking with reporters today (video link), Devils winger Nathan Bastian addressed his upcoming free agency. Eligible to test the open market for the first time, the 27-year-old indicated that his preference is to remain with New Jersey.  However, coming off a down year that saw him record just 10 points in 59 games, he might have to take a small dip in pay from his $1.35MM current deal to do so.  The team only has around $12MM in cap room for next season per PuckPedia with defenseman Luke Hughes likely to take a big chunk of that.  Accordingly, the Devils may need to keep their final few roster spots closer to the minimum salary and with Bastian logging under 11 minutes a night for the last two years, he likely falls in that category.
  • The NHLPA announced that they have hired long-time NHL winger Kyle Okposo as a Business Development and Player Engagement Advisor. Okposo played in over 1,000 career NHL games over parts of 17 seasons, recording 242 goals and 372 assists before ending his career after winning the Stanley Cup with Florida.  This won’t be Okposo’s first time working with the NHLPA as he was part of their Executive Board while playing and was also on the Executive Director Search Committee that eventually led to Marty Walsh being hired.

Nikita Kucherov, Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar Named Ted Lindsay Award Finalists

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Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov and Avalanche superstars Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar have been named the Ted Lindsay Award finalists for the 2024-25 season, the NHLPA announced today. The Lindsay Award is given to the league’s most outstanding player as voted on by his peers.

Now in his 11th NHL season, Kucherov became the 10th player in league history with three or more scoring titles. He’s the first player with back-to-back Art Ross Trophies not named Connor McDavid since Jaromír Jágr won four straight from 1998 to 2001. He finished the campaign with 37 goals, 84 assists, and 121 points in 78 games, not quite sniffing last year’s career-highs across the board but still leading the league in assists and points.

If Kucherov wins, it’ll be his second Lindsay after winning it alongside his first Art Ross-winning season in 2018-19. He’s also just the fourth player in league history to record three consecutive 80-assist seasons, joining Paul Coffey, Wayne Gretzky, and Bobby Orr.

It’s rare to see two players from the same club nominated for the same award, but the wording of “most outstanding” as compared to “most valuable” in the Lindsay fine print opens up the opportunity for this award compared to the media-voted Hart Trophy for league MVP. MacKinnon could be the first back-to-back winner of the Lindsay since McDavid in 2016-17 and 2017-18. He tied Kucherov’s league-leading 84 assists this year and added 32 goals in 79 games in what was a down season for him in the shooting department. MacKinnon’s sky-high 22:47 average time on ice per game led all forwards this year, and he led the league in shots on goal (320) for the fourth time in his 12-year career. MacKinnon totaled 116 points for his third straight season above the century mark.

As for Makar, he was announced as a Norris Trophy finalist just yesterday for the fifth time in his six-year NHL resume. He registered a career-high 30 goals and 92 points in 80 games to lead NHL defensemen, now poised to take home the Defenseman of the Year award for the second time while potentially adding a Lindsay to his trophy case. He faces some extremely long odds, though. A defenseman has only won the Lindsay once since it was introduced as the Lester B. Pearson Award in the 1970-71 campaign – Orr took it home in 1974-75. Carey Price (2014-15) is the only non-forward to win it in the last 28 years.

NHL Announces 2028 World Cup Of Hockey

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With the start of the 4 Nations Face-Off just hours away, it seems the NHL is already establishing plans to deepen its international footprint. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA Executive Director Marty Walsh have plans to announce the 2028 World Cup of Hockey tournament that’d split games between North America and Europe, per Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic. The World Cup will be a mid-season tournament scheduled over the usual All-Star Break, like the 4 Nations Face-Off. LeBrun adds that this news sets up international, best-on-best hockey every two years until 2036 – with hope for a timeline that includes the Winter Olympics in 2026, 2030, and 2034 and the World Cup in 2028, 2032, and 2036.

Perhaps more exciting is the return to the name ’World Cup,’ suggesting that more countries will be involved than the four represented at the 4 Nations tournament. This would inevitably require the involvement of professional leagues around the world, as neither Czechia nor Slovakia have enough NHL players to staff an NHL-exclusive roster.

The naming of a worldwide tournament will also lead to the eventual question of Russia’s involvement. The country has been expelled from international play since the 2021 World Championship, where they fell to Team Canada in the quarterfinals. The IIHF recently reviewed Russia and Belarus’ eligibility for international competition but chose to maintain the expulsion through the 2025-26 season due to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Hall-of-Famer Pavel Bure was chosen to represent Russia in recent conversations with the IIHF and, citing concerns over player safety, shared that Russia would be willing to finance additional security if it meant allowing “fans across the planet to watch one of the world’s best teams in action again.”

The IIHF’s decision will only apply to events they sanction – that decision only applies to IIHF-sanctioned events, and both the NHL and International Olympic Committee will still need to make their own decisions on whether Russia should play in their events. The NHL moving towards potentially biannual meetings between national clubs sets up an inevitable, and potentially precarious decision on Russia’s eligibility.

Ryan Hartman To Appeal Ten-Game Suspension

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Wild forward Ryan Hartman had until today to decide if he’d file an appeal of the ten-game suspension handed down by the league on Monday.  He has elected to do so as the NHLPA announced (Twitter link) that they have filed an appeal on Hartman’s behalf today.

The incident occurred on Saturday versus Ottawa.  Off a faceoff, Hartman drove Tim Stutzle face-first into the ice.  He received a match penalty on the play and after being offered an in-person hearing, was given the ten-game ban, the fifth suspension of his career.  As a result, he forfeits more than $487K in salary as he qualifies under the repeat offender (meaning he’s fined ten games’ play, not ten days’ pay).

Hartman will remain under suspension during the appeal process.  While it often takes longer than the duration of the appeal for it to be heard (meaning the appeal is primarily an attempt to recover some of the lost wages), that might not be the case for Hartman.  With the NHL heading for a break next week due to the 4 Nations Face-Off, it’s quite possible the appeal will be heard during that time when he’ll have only missed three of the ten games.

This appeal will be heard by Commissioner Gary Bettman whose role will be to determine whether the decision was supported by clear and convincing evidence.  If Hartman’s suspension is upheld or is reduced but remains six games or longer, Hartman can further appeal to a neutral arbitrator who would then have the final say.

NHL, NHLPA Release Salary Cap Figures Through 2027-28

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The NHL and NHLPA have released updated salary cap estimates for the next three seasons, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports Friday. After initially being estimated to rise from the current $88MM ceiling to $92MM for the 2025-26 campaign, it’ll jump to a $95.5MM upper limit next season. Upper limit estimates for the 2026-27 and 2027-28 seasons have been set at $104MM and $113.5MM, respectively. However, Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reports that the memo sent to teams by the league today is indicative of a set agreement on figures for the next three years, not an estimate of projection, although they are still subject to “potential minor adjustments (up or down).”

In addition to this summer’s major jump, these numbers indicate a steady escalation in year-over-year increases in the cap ceiling. There will be a $7.5MM difference in upper limits between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 campaigns, an $8.5MM difference between 2025-26 and 2026-27, and $9.5MM between 2026-27 and 2027-28. That’s around a 9% jump per year on average, up significantly from the roughly 5% jump we’re used to in recent seasons outside of the COVID-related cap freeze.

Increases in cap ceilings also mean big jumps in the minimum a team can spend while still being compliant. The cap floor will rise from $65MM this season to $70.6MM in 2025-26, $76.9MM in 2026-27, and $83.9MM in 2027-28. The lower limit is tied directly to the upper limit – the floor is always set at 85% of the midpoint, with the ceiling always equaling 115% of the midpoint.

The league minimum salary, currently set at $775K, is independent of the salary cap and will need to be set during CBA negotiations, which are set to begin next month. It will remain at $775K for next season, the last under the current CBA.

As agents continue to negotiate new deals for their players based on cap hit percentage at the time of signing instead of actual dollar value, both elite and mid-range free agents in the coming seasons stand to benefit massively. A $5MM cap hit today is 5.68% of the $88MM upper limit, which will be equivalent to $5.4MM, $5.9MM, and $6.4MM over the coming three years. For higher-priced talents, a $10MM AAV deal today will work out to $10.9MM in 2025-26, $11.8MM in 2026-27, and $12.9MM in 2027-28.

The early confirmation and unprecedented move to issue official cap numbers multiple years in advance means more negotiating power for top UFAs-to-be, whether that’s Mitch Marner and Mikko Rantanen on this year’s market, Connor McDavid and Kirill Kaprizov in 2026, or Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar in 2027. Next year’s immediate $7.5MM jump will be the largest year-over-year increase in the salary cap era, breaking the record set by the $6.4MM jump between the 2007-08 and 2008-09 campaigns.

NHL Expected To Announce Next World Cup Of Hockey

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TSN’s Darren Dreger is reporting that the NHL and the NHLPA intend to move forward with a 2028 World Cup of Hockey without the involvement of the International Ice Hockey Federation. Both the league and the players’ union are hopeful they can make an announcement at the upcoming 4 Nations Face-off that will take place from February 12th – February 20th in Boston and Montreal.

The NHL players have not participated in an international tournament (outside of the IIHF World Championships) since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey but could conceivably have three international tournaments in the next four years if you include the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

A 2028 World Cup of Hockey would be the fourth time the tournament has taken place with the last three happening in 1996, 2004, and the aforementioned 2016. The last World Cup took place in Toronto and was won by Canada with Sidney Crosby taking home the tournament MVP. Eight teams participated in the tournament alongside Canada (the United States, Finland, Czechia, Russia, Sweden, and two all-star teams). A future World Cup of Hockey would likely follow a similar template.

If the IIHF remains on the sidelines for the 2028 World Cup of Hockey, it will mean that the NHL will have the final say on who will be able to participate in the tournament.

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