Deal in sight: NHL and NHLPA close to extending collective bargaining agreement
The NHL and the NHL Players’ Association (NHLPA) are in the final stages of an agreement to extend the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) for four years. This agreement includes an 84-game regular season and solutions for emergency goaltenders.
The official announcement could come as early as Friday, before the NHL draft, but it still needs to be signed and ratified by both parties.
The current CBA expires after the 2025-26 season. A four-year extension would take the league and its players to September 2030.
The agreement will also limit the duration of player contracts to seven years.
Moving from 82 to 84 games in the regular season would shorten the preseason to a maximum of four games per team, instead of the current format of up to eight preseason games. An increased regular season would allow the NHL to maintain its regular format of each team visiting an opponent once, while giving division rivals four games between them every two seasons.
The new CBA will also eliminate deferred salaries, a trend that some teams were using to keep salary caps low. From now on, players can re-sign for eight years with their current team or seven years in free agency. In the future, players can re-sign for a maximum of seven years with their current team and six years in free agency.
The new agreement includes revised language that would establish a new position within the organizations of full-time Backup Emergency Goalkeepers, who can practice and travel with the team.
Both sides discussed eliminating the loophole of the Long-Term Injury Reserve to ensure teams comply with the salary cap in the playoffs, and revised language is expected in the new CBA.
The new CBA will bring a very welcome labor peace to a league that has seen three lockouts in the last 20 years. This is the first major negotiation for Marty Walsh, the former mayor of Boston and United States Secretary of Labor, who took over as executive director of the NHLPA in 2023.
Walsh surveyed the players during the first half of last season to get their opinions, before sitting down with Bettman earlier this year to discuss the details.
The NHL and NHLPA have already announced significant increases in the salary cap over the next three seasons. The new CBA is expected to maintain a 50-50 split of hockey-related revenue between players and owners.
