The new NHL CBA is a go and labour peace in hockey will last until at least 2030. That’s generally a good thing, but understandably Leafs fans might want to kick some rocks over the closing of some of the loopholes that benefit the wealthier teams in the league.
Much has already been discussed about the broader ideas in the CBA, but the finer details and some of the more interesting things that have been slipped in haven’t been discussed as much. In reading through the Memo of Understanding on the NHLPA’s website, here are few interesting things that caught this layman’s eyes.
Playoff Cap Counting
Attachment 25-B of the MOU lays out what the playoff salary cap will look like and it’s pretty straight forward. The lineup card (not the roster) needs to be cap compliant five hours prior to a playoff game.
Each team will need to submit a lineup card of 18 skaters and 2 goaltenders that will fall under the cap ceiling for that given year and that is based on the player’s AAV (includes signing bonuses but not performances bonuses.) Also, if salary was retained in a deal the AAV attached to the playing team is all that would count, same as it works in the regular season.
This would appear to take dead cap space out of the mix and salary buried in the minors, buyouts, and retained salary of a player no longer on the roster won’t impact the playoff salary cap and it will be interesting to see if any of that can form a new loophole in some way, but at the very least it makes it so that when Matthew Tkachuk magically returns from injury in the first round of the playoffs, the Panthers would need to find a way of building a cap compliant lineup that now also includes Brad Marchand and Seth Jones.
The playing field becomes a bit more level for the playoffs through this approach, which is probably a good thing and teams will now have to be mindful of what their best 20 players cost in relation to the salary cap heading into the trade deadline. On the other side of things this really waters down an already underwhelming trade deadline and makes it more about fitting depth cap pieces into a puzzle instead of making significant additions.
Most people will take the trade off a better playoff product over a more interesting trade deadline, so it will be interesting to see how this new system works in a couple of springs.
One 19 year old CHL eligible player in the AHL
This change is coming a little late for Easton Cowan but there is unquestionably a benefit for players who have demonstrated they have nothing more to prove in junior hockey but aren’t quite ready for the AHL. Having one top prospect in the AHL is a nice step forward but it still needs the blessing of the CHL to make it official.
Between CHL players now being eligible to play in the NCAA and the NHL working to take away at least one top player for every NHL team and put them in the AHL, the CHL might have its back up a little, but given that these changes don’t impact the player’s career leading up to the draft, and in most cases keeps them in the CHL the year following the draft, there is still a lot of talent in the league, just less of a monopoly of it.
It will be interesting to see if teams start strategically drafting. Will players be selected based on whether they make the 19-year-old cut off age and can play in the AHL immediately? Will over-agers start getting selected higher in the draft because they can slide right into development in the AHL? Unlikely not at the cost of taking the best player available to the team, but it seems that teams will be ensuring they always use this allocated spot.
Salary Changes
- Article 26: NHL minimum salary
- 2026-27: $850,000
- 2027-28: $900,000
- 2028-29: $950,000
- 2029-30: $1,000,000
- Article 27: Performance bonus eligibility
- 400 games played, last 70 days on LTIR or 100 total days, fewer than 2 playoff games played can have a bonus laden 1 year deal
- Article 29: Entry Level Contract maximum values
- Table will be updated but lowest possible maximum ELC would be NHL league minimum salary +$175,000 (i.e. 2026-27: $1,025,000)
With the salary cap going up it stands to reason that the minimum player salaries will be going up as well and by 2029 every player in the NHL will have a $1M contract.
The performance bonus structure is slightly different as it allows for deals like the one signed by Jonathan Toews but curbs some of the deals for players that have been active in the NHL. Existing clauses might precede this one and it this may not impact 35+ year old players, but it adds some clarity to who is eligible.
End of double retention and paper loans
- Article 30: Paper Loans
- Article 30: Players sent down must play one game before being eligible for recall
- Article 35: No more double salary retention deals
- A second retention on salary can only be made 75 days after the first deal
When it comes to the paper loans, the Leafs will be impacted. The team is always right to the salary cap and has regularly taken advantage of this loophole where they could in order to save a few dollars on off days. Sending players down on paper seems like a thing of the past but a lot more clarity in the full version of the Collective Bargaining Agreement is required before knowing the extent of the impact here.
The limitation on salary retention deals is another knife the trade deadline as teams are now required to wait 75 days before salary can be retained a second time. These rules feel like purposeful attacks on Brandon Pridham and how he’s managed the Leafs’ cap space.
Maybe we’ll see deals over the summer where teams acquire a player and it will be a head scratcher of a deal and 75 days later it will suddenly make sense. Maybe there will be a mini-trade deadline 75 days out from the actual one and players will spend a couple months hanging out with a temporary club. Probably not. It’s far more likely that this addition kills double retention dead.
Maximum of four preseason games
The NHL season expanding to 84 games has been talked about a lot through the CBA process and while from a quality of product standpoint, the season getting shorter makes sense, adding a couple of games to the regular season for some additional revenue and to balance out the schedule a bit more evenly makes sense.
Thankfully the addition of regular season games came at the expense of the preseason and starting in 2026-27 teams will be capped at four exhibition games. And additionally, players with over 100 games of NHL experience will be capped at appearing in two games.
Reducing the chance of injuries to roster players in the most meaningless games of the year is a huge win for not only the NHLPA but the overall product and while coaches will likely get their veterans into both of their eligible games and teams won’t leave money on the table and all of them will schedule four games, this is a positive step.
It will be interesting to see if this has any impact on pro tryout agreements, either increasing the number of them where teams are needing to balance out their lineups or if teams stop doing them because there isn’t a chance to get a good look at tryout players.
The permanent eBUG details
- Attachment 87: eBUG requirements
- never played an NHL game under an NHL contract
- fewer than 80 professional games
- hasn’t played professional hockey in 3+ years
- no contractional obligations or be on the reserve list of any NHL club
The NHL and NHLPA apparently drew the line at, eBUG must be on skates for the first time and cannot have stood upright for more than 50 days in the past calendar year.
Anyways, this seems like a commitment to having a fairly level playing field on eBUGs and perhaps it’s a matter of finding the right undrafted option coming out of the CHL or NCAA to maximize their recency to playing competitive hockey and getting the longest term out of it.
That approach also creates a bit of a “reserve driver” status similar to racing where the eBUG will be very familiar with the team, the coach, the systems, and gives the organization a good look at what the goaltender can do. While there are rules about teams not signing professional goalies to being eBUGs, there isn’t anything saying that you can’t offer your eBUG a contract at some point and teams might take on a try before you buy approach with this role.
Protect ya neck
The new rule 9.9 will make it so that all new players coming into the NHL in 2026-27 (anyone with zero games played in the NHL at that point) will be required to wear neck protection. As someone who has the Clint Malarchuk incident as a core childhood memory, I can’t help but think this is long overdue.
These are just a few of the items that are eye catching in the new agreement and there is a lot more there to dive into, especially if you are interested in learning how Hockey Related Revenue is calculated (I am not.) The new CBA also seems to include a lot of positive steps forward when it comes to life after hockey and improving medical treatment. There will certainly be a lot more to explore once the final version of the CBA is published.
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