CBA

NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly sat with reporters yesterday as part of the NHL’s ongoing media tour in Vegas, including Michael Russo of The Athletic, answering various administrative-type questions.

Given its usage in a pair of max-term extensions handed out by the Hurricanes this summer, deferred compensation was a popular topic of discussion. It’s likely to be a topic of discussion during upcoming Collective Bargaining Agreement talks due to a “long-term big-picture fear” of teams being able to use deferred compensation for cap circumvention purposes, Daly said. But in the interim, it’s not a notable concern because of specific interpretations of the CBA the league shared with the Hurricanes and the NHLPA earlier this summer, ones he thinks “will continue to be binding until we renegotiate over it.”

Daly admitted deferred compensation, in general, isn’t something the league is in favor of, saying, “It throws out of whack some of the other checks and balances we have in the CBA, which forces interpretations in terms of how we allow it and what’s permissible and what’s not permissible.” He continued, saying, “The original deferred-comp rules were developed in a non-cap world as opposed to in the cap world, so they kind of were inherited, and so they probably need adjustment on some basis going forward.”

There’s plenty more from Daly and Russo:

• When asked about expansion, Daly continued the NHL’s recent public position that the expansion process isn’t active. He did, however, hint that expansion south of the border will be a priority when talks do start up again in earnest. “We’re at 22 U.S. markets when the other professional sports leagues are basically at 30, 31 markets,” Daly said. “So that means there’s market availability, which I think helps.” Daly also said the league doesn’t have an “imminent” concern about talent dilution with a growing base of teams.
• Daly said that most of the league’s general managers want the league to consider making “some kind of adjustment” to teams utilizing long-term injured reserve to carry playoff rosters that come in well above the regular-season salary cap. “Some of the [ways to address it] that have been kind of thrown around in the media wouldn’t necessarily be fair or the best way to approach it, I think, because of the way we do accrual accounting. So you can pick up an expensive contract at the end of its term and your cap only gets charged a certain amount. But all of a sudden if that $1MM, say, you assume becomes $5MM on Game 1 of the playoffs and you can’t play that player as a result, I’m not sure that’s a fair result because teams complied within the rules.“
• Daly also hopes that neck guards will become mandatory in the NHL “on some basis” soon, following the lead of other North American junior and minor leagues in the wake of former NHLer Adam Johnson’s death from a skate laceration to the neck while playing in England last year. He said the league had already proposed a mandatory rule not approved by the NHLPA. Still, he added the league “clearly understand[s] where the union is coming from and some of the difficulties they have with their constituents.”
• The league has yet to sign off on the final documents confirming their players’ participation in the 2026 Winter Olympics but expects to do so during the Global Series games between the Devils and the Sabres in Czechia next month. “Certainly, from the NHL’s perspective, I don’t see any real gating issues from finalizing those documents,” Daly said.

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.

The NHL is now in its annual roster freeze period which runs through December 28th.  However, there still have been several transactions today and there are likely to be several more in the coming days.  Let’s take a look at Rule 16.5 (d) in the CBA and go over what is and isn’t allowed during this period.

The first section of the rule reads as follows:

(i) For all Players on an NHL Active Roster, Injured Reserve, or Players with Non-Roster and Injured Non-Roster status as of 11:59 p.m. local time on December 19, a roster freeze shall apply through 12:01 a.m. local time December 28, with respect to Waivers, Trades and Loans; provided, however, that Players may be Recalled to NHL Clubs during this period and, provided further, that if a Player is placed on Regular Waivers prior to the roster freeze period and is claimed during such roster freeze period, the roster freeze period shall not apply and the Player shall immediately report to the claiming Club. However, during the roster freeze period a Club can make any Player transactions necessary for the Club to come into compliance with Article 50 as a result of a Player being removed from the Bona-Fide Long-Term Injury/Illness Exception.

First, it’s worth noting that recalls are still permitted so if a team has an injury in a game over the next couple of days, they will be able to bring up a replacement player as long as they remain cap-compliant.

In terms of what can’t be done, trades are certainly off the table as are waivers in the majority of circumstances.  The exception is for a team to get into cap compliance to activate someone from LTIR.  In that situation, demotions including waivers are still allowed.  That said, we generally don’t see that happen at this time of year.

Now, let’s move on to the second section which digs into the majority of what we’ll see in the coming days:

(ii) Notwithstanding Section 16.5(d)(i), a Player on emergency Recall may be Loaned during the roster freeze period and a Player who was Recalled after December 11 may be Loaned through 11:59 p.m. local time on December 23, provided such Player is not required to be placed on Waivers during the roster freeze period in order to effectuate such Loan.

Anyone who is brought up on a recall after December 11th is still eligible to be sent down as long as it’s done by the end of Saturday.  Sometimes, moves might be registered by then but won’t actually be announced publicly until the 24th.  Meanwhile, a player on an emergency recall (when a team has fewer than twelve healthy forwards, six healthy defensemen, or two healthy goalies) can also be sent down when the emergency situation no longer applies.

In all likelihood, we’ll see a lot of these loans late on the 23rd, allowing teams to bank cap space for three days when the league shuts down between the 24th and 26th.  If the player has recently cleared waivers, the demotion would also stop the 30-day clock (before needing to clear again) for a few days.  The roster freeze may be in effect but there is still bound to be a high number of transactions during this time.

There are a maximum of seven games left in the 2022-23 playoffs with the Golden Knights and Panthers kicking off the Stanley Cup Final on Saturday and the offseason activity is soon to begin.  When it does, it will come quickly as June is a particularly busy month on the calendar.  CapFriendly recently provided (Twitter link) an overview of the key dates ahead.  Here’s a rundown of those dates and their importance.

June 1:

4 PM CT: Deadline to sign certain draft picks.  If these players don’t sign by this time, the team who drafted or acquired the player will lose the rights.  If they remain draft-eligible, they’ll go back into the draft.  Otherwise, they’ll become unrestricted free agents.

4 PM CT: Deadline to tender a Bona Fide offer to 2022 draftees.  This one falls under the radar but teams actually have to extend an offer to each player they picked in order to retain their rights.  It only has to be a minimum salary agreement and can be done as a formality quickly after the draft.  Periodically, teams opt not to tender an offer and if that happens, they lose the rights to the player.

June 15:

4 PM CT: Deadline for teams to sign international players under contract for next season.  For example, a team has a European prospect that is signed through 2023-24.  In order to register a valid NHL contract for next season through the transfer agreement, the player must be signed by this time.  This also applies to players that are presently free agents in the NHL.

Later of June 15 or 48 hours after Stanley Cup Final ends:

Opening of the first buyout window.  This could come as late as June 21st if the Cup Final goes the distance.  Teams can execute regular buyouts, paying two-thirds of the remaining salary of the player over two times the remaining length of the contract.  That rate drops to one-third if the player is younger than 26 at the time of the buyout.

Deadline for first club-elected arbitration.  Teams can elect to take a player to arbitration instead of waiting to see if that player opts to file later in the summer.  It would be a way to ensure that a contract is in place instead of running the risk of a holdout.  Players can only be taken to arbitration once in their career and must be arbitration-eligible to do so; they can’t do so with unrestricted free agents.  It’s rare that a team goes this route and even rarer that it’s done at this point.  There is a second window that briefly opens in early July and that’s when the odd club-elected arbitration is announced.

June 28/29

NHL Entry Draft

June 30

4 PM CT – Closure of regular buyout window.  Teams could have a second window open up later in July if they have arbitration filings.

4 PM CT – Qualifying offer deadline.  Any player who doesn’t receive one will become an unrestricted free agent the next day.

6 PM CT – RFA Contact Period.  Players who have been tendered a qualifying offer are eligible to discuss offer sheets with other teams.  No formal offer can be made until free agency officially opens on July 1st at 11 AM CT.

If you’re wondering about a UFA Contact Period, there isn’t one of those anymore.  Officially, teams aren’t allowed to speak to unrestricted free agents until July 1st at 11 AM CT.  Unofficially, we know that rule isn’t exactly being enforced based on the high number of contracts officially announced mere minutes after the market officially opens up.

With more than 200 players joining teams in the draft, quite a few players being non-tendered, and, as things stand at least, more than 300 players set to hit the open market barring them re-signing, the final few days of June and the beginning of July figure to be quite the frenzy.  Between those and the usual increase in trade activity around that time, we’ll be in for a very busy stretch of transactions in the not-too-distant future.