The NHL general managers were taking place this week and touched on some important league developments, from the 2022-23 NHL salary cap, to no-trade clauses, to a potential playoff salary cap.
Salary cap projected for $82.5 million
The league’s general managers were told this week that the 2022-23 league salary cap is projected to be $82.5 million, which would be a $1 million increase from the $81.5 million mark it has been at the past two years. After steadily rising for years by a couple of million each season, the cap remained flat the past two years due to lost revenues as a result of the pandemic. The salary cap is expected to rise significantly following the 2024-25 season when the $1 billion debt held by players to the owners is repaid .
The #NHL reiterated today that the projection is the $1 billion debt held by the players will be repaid to owners by the end of the 2024-25 season.
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) March 29, 2022
If that projection holds, 2025-26 is the first season the salary cap could rise significantly.
Talks for centralized no-trade registry
The Vegas Golden Knights’ failed attempt to trade Evgenii Dadonov last week exposed a pretty significant flaw in how the league handles no-trade and no-movement clauses.
While nothing is yet official, the league and NHLPA have had discussions on how to centralize that data. So far the talks have centered on copying the league’s central registry and the NHLPA on those lists.
Until there has really not been any formal registry for keeping them, leading to some complications in tracking them. The most notable was the Vegas-Dadonov situation that resulted in his trade to the Anaheim Ducks being invalidated after there was confusion as to the status of his no-trade clause (which included the Ducks).
[Related: NHL Invalidates Golden Knights-Ducks Evgenii Dadonov Trade]
Postseason salary cap and LTIR is a CBA issue
There was discussion on the LTIR salary cap exception and the way it can be utilized to ice a roster in the playoffs that exceeds the league’s salary cap (see: 2020-21 Tampa Bay Lightning). It is important to note that any changes to that would need to be negotiated with the NHLPA through the CBA.
Only countries at the next World Cup of Hockey
The next World Cup of Hockey in 2024 will not include the Team North America or Team Europe teams that were utilized in the 2016 World Cup tournament. It will only be countries. With the NHL not going to the past two Olympics it will be over a decade since NHL players were involved in a best-on-best international tournament.
The 2016 World Cup featured a team of Under-23 North American players, as well as a Team Europe roster that was made up of European players whose countries were not represented in the tournament. That roster included players from Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Switzerland.
Team Europe was the surprising runner-up in that tournament, losing the best-of-three Gold Medal round to Canada by scores of 3-1 and 2-1. Team Europe was 0-3 against Canada in the tournament and 4-2 against every other team it played (the two losses were to the under-23 North American team).
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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.
