More Changes Coming to NHL in Upcoming Season

LTIR Limits

The NHL is immediately prioritizing closing the loopholes surrounding the Long-Term Injured Reserve. It’s been utilized as a tool for teams to acquire more talent, specifically around the trade deadline, without eclipsing the salary cap ceiling. Now, the league has put a strict limit on the maximum amount of financial relief a team can receive by placing a player on LTIR.

For the 2025-2026 season, the maximum amount of relief is $3.817 million. To use the Florida Panthers as an example, this would mean that the maximum salary cap relief they will receive from placing star forward Matthew Tkachuk on LTIR to begin the season is that $3.817 million figure, which is significantly less than the $9.5 annual average salary Tkachuk counts against the cap for.

Paper Loans Lockdown

The exact details haven’t been revealed by the NHL, but what’s known is that there will be another immediate implementation from the new CBA regarding what they are referring to as “paper loans.” In a nutshell, these moves are used by NHL organizations to send a player down to their American Hockey League affiliate, without making the player actually report to the AHL team. It’s used most often to free up salary cap space on a daily basis or to make temporary roster space during injury situations. Now, the NHL will be monitoring this more closely and imposing a limit on the number of these types of transactions per season.

Retention Restrictions

One last immediate addition to the rule book is locking down the number of teams and times a contract can be retained in trades. Previously, an NHL team could use a third team to help broker a trade by absorbing a portion of a player's salary cap hit. Under the new rule, a team cannot retain any money on a players' contract in a trade within 75 regular season days of the first transaction.

This rule would take away a trade like the one executed between the Tampa Bay Lightning, Detroit Red Wings and Seattle Kraken. The Lightning acquired veteran forwards Oliver Bjorkstrand and Yanni Gourde, but with very little salary cap space, the Red Wings played mediator by absorbing 50% of his contract in exchange for a low-tier prospect and a fourth-round pick. By the definition of the new rules, the Red Wings would not have been allowed to move Gourde for 75 regular-season days. So, if a team acquires a player at the NHL Trade Deadline and retains salary cap, they could not move him again until the second month of the following season.

It will be very interesting to see how the league responds to these sweeping changes. NHL general managers have relied on these tools and loopholes to improve their teams for a long time, and undoing that learned way of operating will take time. It could be a contributing reason to why trades have dried up over the summer, but hopefully with these new rules secured, the league’s activity will pick up again.