TSN’s Travis Yost analyzed the growing number of bonus-laden contracts in the NHL and directly correlated it to the upcoming expiration of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NHL and NHLPA. There are several issues at hand once the CBA expires after the 2025-26 NHL season but many players are beginning to protect themselves with higher bonuses and lower salaries.
The protective nature of signing bonuses in a potential lockout is straightforward. Signing bonuses are due in the summer months leading up to the start of the season meaning a lockout wouldn’t prohibit a player from receiving it. Players’ salaries are typically frozen during a lockout which has been a misfortune used to strongarm the NHLPA during the 2004-05 and 2012-13 lockouts.
Yost shows in the article that the percentage of contracts containing signing bonuses has been climbing as approximately 80% of deals signed from January 2024 included signing bonuses for the 2026-27 NHL season. The players are putting themselves in a much better bargaining position once the current CBA ends as ownership groups won’t be able to hold their frozen salaries over their heads.
There are 38 players in the league with signing bonuses totaling $3MM or more for the 2026-27 season and another 22 players with $1MM or more. Rudimentary math works it out to around 8% of players carrying signing bonuses in their deals assuming that all 32 teams keep a 23-man roster for the 2026-27 season.
That number will surely expand over the next two summers as the likes of Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Mikko Rantanen, and Artemi Panarin among others will see their current contracts conclude and will certainly be looking to protect themselves in case of a lockout. We are still about a year and a half away from action picking up on the new CBA between the NHL and NHLPA but the players are already taking the necessary steps to protect their financial security.
Awesome. Start exploring expansion just in time for another CBA lockout.
Yost is overstating his case. It may be true for contracts that only have bonuses for 26-27. But many bonus-heavy contracts have them across the life of the contract. The bigger factor in that is taxes. Since signing bonuses are paid in the summer, they are taxed based on where the player’s primary residence is rather than where the player is playing (which how in-season salary is taxed). So players whose primary residence is in low/no tax states but play for teams from high-tax states/provinces pay little to no tax on their summer bonuses and much higher taxes on their in-season salary. That obviously incentivizes them to get as much of their pay as they can in signing bonuses – a bigger incentive, I’d say, than protecting against a possible lockout in one particular year.