The NHL has decided to significantly raise the salary cap for the first time in five years.

The National Hockey League, having increased its revenues after the coronavirus pandemic, is going to significantly raise the salary cap for the first time in half a decade. Next year it will immediately increase by $4.2 million, to $87.7 million. This is a great gift for the owners and managers of NHL clubs, for whom the virtually frozen ceiling in recent years has made it very difficult to staff clubs, causing staff turnover and exceptional instability of the hierarchy.

The NHL intends to raise the salary cap, currently set at $83.5 million, by $4.2 million next season. ESPN. According to him, league leaders informed club owners and managers about this at a meeting of its board of directors in Seattle. In October, NHL chairman Gary Bettman said he could not rule out a cap in 2024 that would be “in the $87 million to $88 million range.” By keeping his promise, he actually gave those who run the clubs a great Christmas gift.

The salary cap is one of the NHL’s key financial tools. With its help, the league maintains a high level of competition in the championship and also reduces the risk of commercial failure of clubs.

The ceiling is the allowable amount of annual salaries of hockey players in a club application. In the NHL, unlike, for example, the National Basketball Association (NBA), it is strict, that is, the possibility of exceeding it, even for paying a luxury tax, is not provided.

The NHL, which experienced two lockouts at once in this century, provoked, among other things, by the “salary race” of hockey players, tried to raise the ceiling smoothly all the time, without jerks. The previous significant adjustment to the cap dates back to 2018, when it increased from $75 million to $79.5 million. And in 2020, the NHL completely froze it at $81.5 million for three whole seasons due to the coronavirus pandemic, which significantly shortened the calendar. two championships in a row, and also led to significant financial losses for other reasons, for example, due to restrictions on the admission of spectators to the stands. Gary Bettman, assessing the losses, spoke of the $1 billion “debt” the players owed to the club owners – the amount they spent to secure their contracts, despite the loss of their own income.

From a dead point, the ceiling moved in 2022. The same Gary Bettman associated the possibility of its increase with the return of the league’s annual revenues to the pre-pandemic level – up to $5 billion. But for two seasons it was raised a little – by $1 million.

The reason why the owners and managers of most clubs were looking forward to a change in strategy is understandable. To appreciate the urgency of significantly raising the salary cap, just look at the payrolls of the league’s teams. According to the resource Cap Friendly, who constantly monitors them, at the moment almost half of the clubs – 15 out of 32 – formally even exceed the ceiling. These teams fit into it only thanks to the use of a trick with the so-called LTIR – the list of “long-term injured”. Placing a hockey player in it allows us to ignore his salary. However, the player must miss at least ten regular season matches and 24 days. Only four teams have payrolls of less than $80 million, and only marginally so: the Nashville Predators, Anaheim Ducks, Buffalo Sabers and Chicago Blackhawks.

The lack of play under the ceiling results in serious, sometimes simply catastrophic problems with staffing the rosters, caused, say, by the need to re-sign contracts with stars demanding better conditions.

This, in turn, leads to personnel turnover and unstable hierarchy in the NHL. There is nothing strange in the fact that over the past decade, only two clubs – the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2017 and the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2021 – managed to defend their title as Stanley Cup winners. Leaders, due to a cruel and “inert” ceiling, are almost always forced to part with some fairly important players whose quotations rise against the backdrop of team success.

Explaining why the NHL has now decided to sharply raise the ceiling, ESPN again points to the economic factor. His sources claim that at the same meeting in Seattle, Gary Bettman pleased the top officials of the North American hockey business with the news that league revenues could exceed $6 billion, and that very “debt” of players to the owners had already been reduced to $50 million, which makes it possible to stop holding back salaries with the same rigidity as before.

Alexey Dospehov