Changes to the NHL salary cap and how will teams handle it?
Sportology: Changes to the NHL salary cap.
2025-26: $7.5 million
2026-27: $8.5 million
2027-28: $9.5 million
Those increases would set Team Payroll Ranges for the next three seasons to:
2025-26
Upper Limit: $95.5 million
Lower Limit: $70.6 million
2026-27
Upper Limit: $104 million
Lower Limit: $76.9 million
2027-28
Upper Limit: $113.5 million
Lower Limit: $83.9 million
Sportsnet: Frank Seravalli on the Kyper and Bourne show on how teams will handle the new projected NHL salary cap increase.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Bourne: “What does this tangibly mean for hockey fans? How will this change the way players are signed and moved around?
Seravalli: “It’s, just provides increased flexibility and spending options.
For a team like the Toronto Maple Leafs, it’s breathing room that they haven’t had for a long time. I mean, think about the way they did business heading into the pandemic. No one saw a pandemic coming. Had the cap continued to increase at, you know, an average of a 5% clip, I don’t know that we’re sweating over the contract signed for Auston Matthews and William Nylander and go down the list, Mitch Marner, the rest of the team.
But things came to a screeching halt, and they’ve had to adjust. I don’t know that any team in the league has been probably more damaged by the pandemic and the resulting business on the cap than the Leafs. So they’ve had to adjust and figure things out.
And what it means moving forward is you’re going to see players get paid massive sums of money. That’s the new reality. It’s a great time to be a free agent. It’s a great time to be a player that’s going to be hitting the market over these next few years.
Because as mentioned, with the system, as it’s designed, look, this year’s $88 million cap is based on a $5.4 billion revenue system. Well, that was a few years ago. Right now, this year’s projected revenue is $6.7 billion. As this continues to increase, projected hit $7 billion and beyond, you’re going to see this cap climb, you know, pretty significantly, as we’ve seen in the numbers demonstrated today.
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So it’s it’s a great spot to be if you’re an NHL player. I think the bigger question mark for fans, and not necessarily from a team excitement and building standpoint, is, how are some of these teams going to be able to afford these massive increases in the salary cap? That’s what really needs to be determined because that part hasn’t been figured out.
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