NHL Announces Increase to Salary Cap

The NHL will see a huge bump in the salary cap over the next three seasons.

Jun 28, 2024; Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman welcomes fans to the 2024 NHL Draft at The Sphere. Mandatory Credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images / Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images

The NHL is finally out of the shadow of the COVID pandemic and there are expectations that a stagnant salary cap will be a thing of the past. After a few years of a slowly increasing cap, the NHL and NHLPA has released salary cap estimates for the next three seasons.

In 2025-26, the NHL will see the salary cap increase by $7.5 million from $88 million to $95.5 million. An even bigger jump is expected in 2026-27 increasing all the way to $104 million. In 2027-28, the NHL expects to see the salary cap take another jump to $113.5 million.

New:

NHL/NHLPA have released cap estimates for next three seasons:

2025-26: $95.5M
2026-27: $104 M
2027-28: $113.5M

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) January 31, 2025

It’ll certainly pay to be a free agent in the coming seasons with massive contracts expected from all over the league. Whether they are reasonable deals or not based on a player’s skill is to be seen, but for now it can be expected that salaries will follow suit.

The highest-paid player in the NHL for the 2024-25 season is Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews at $13.25 million. That’s 15% of the salary cap. By the 2027-28, the final year of that contract, Matthews will only account for 11% of the cap.

Starting in the 2025-26 season, Leon Draisaitl will take over as the highest-paid player in the NHL with a $14 million annual salary. The huge increase in the cap ceiling is already making Draisaitl’s contract look much more reasonable for the Edmonton Oilers.

While Draisaitl is set to make $14 million annually, his superstar teammate Connor McDavid is expected to surpass that when he signs an extension possibly this offseason. With the salary cap looking to take a big jump, it’s tough to tell right now just how much money McDavid will sign on the dotted line for.

The NHL was stuck with a “flat-cap” between 2020 and 2022 ($81.5 million) and only incrementally increased in the few seasons following. The jump from 2022-23 to 2023-24 was the biggest jump the league had seen since pre-COVID ($83.5 million to $88 million).

This kind of move has been in the works and rumored for quite some time now, but fans and players are excited to see what kind of impact a huge salary cap will have on the NHL.

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