Breaking down the NHL, NHLPA’s new salary cap agreement

Player salaries will continue to rise alongside the growing salary cap.

On Friday, the NHL and NHLPA released the estimates for the salary cap over the next three seasons. The cap is expected to be $95.5 million next season, with a floor of $70.6 million. For the 2026-27 season, the cap is projected to be up to $104 million, with a floor of $76.9 million. Then, by 2027-28, the cap is estimated to rise to $113.5 million, with a floor of $83.9 million.

With the current cap set at $88 million, the fact that it could rise over $25 million in a little over two years is astounding, especially since, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the cap was stagnant and hardly rose for a few years.

Not only will this give players the opportunity to put more money in their pocket, but also allow some teams the flexibility to add more talent.

On Friday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Frank Seravalli breaks down what the rise in the salary cap will mean for the league moving forward.

Frank Seravalli: Because the NHL has been operating on a two-year lag formula on this current CBA, they had a chance to take a step back and have this be based closer to actual previous revenue, as opposed to what future projection revenue is going to be. The changing of the formula has allowed them ample opportunity to put in stone an ironclad agreement with the NHL and NHLPA. Not really a projection, moreso an agreement.

Of course, as they noted, it is subject to minor increases, up or down, but for the most part, you can now operate, if you’re an NHL team or an agent, with some degree of certainty here. I think the other really interesting part of this is not just the part of the increase in the upper limit, but what a lot of teams, especially smaller-market teams, are going to be paying attention to today is how much the salary floor is increasing.

This year’s total upper limit on the salary cap is $88 million. Three seasons from now, the floor is going to be increasing to $83.9 million…That’s going to be an interesting thing to look at is how much can these teams generate additional revenue to be able to try and pay these salaries.

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…