It appears the National Hockey League is preparing for a big shift with their salary cap.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman and Rory Boylen released a report on Tuesday that says the league has given its teams guidance on where the cap could move to the next few seasons.
Spoiler alert, it’s going up big time.
As of the current 2022-23 season, the cap sits at $82.5 million. The report details a scenario where that could jump all the way up to $92 million by the 2025-26 campaign. A sharp contrast to the flat cap era from 2019-20 through 2021-22 where a team’s maximum payroll stood still at $81.5 million.
Reporting W/@RoryBoylen: teams received some guidance on where the cap “could” be going — https://t.co/DFGtAQQqFm
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) September 27, 2022
In the report, Friedman and Boylen outline the projections by season. A caveat is given that the following totals are just projections and educated guesses, not a guarantee of where things will be.
2022-23: $82.5 million
2023-24: $83.5 million
2024-25: $87.5 million – $88 million
2025-26: ~$92 million
This news is massively important for teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs who have to deal with an impending Auston Matthews extension and for teams like the Ottawa Senators and Colorado Avalanche who just signed players like Tim Stützle and Nathan MacKinnon to massive, long-term contracts.
From a Capitals perspective, this is intriging news. The only player in the entire organization, as of today, to have a contract through the 2026-27 season is goaltender Darcy Kuemper. Going back one year to 2025-26, when the cap is expected to hit possibly hit that $92 million peak, it’s only Kuemper, Alex Ovechkin, and John Carlson.
That could allow the organization to stay competitive in the post-Ovechkin era and avoid or possibly minimize a rebuild.
Headline photo: Ian Oland/RMNB
