The NHL's collective bargaining agreement does not expire until September 15, 2026. The fact that negotiations on a new deal are scheduled to begin in early 2025 is already a step further than in the past in ice hockey collective bargaining.
Commissioner Gary Bettman said he expects discussions with the NHL Players' Association to begin in February, around the time stakeholders gather for the four-nation clash, considered the latest example of cooperation in the sport. Both sides have issues to address and want change, but the league's evolution combined with the good working relationship between Bettman and union executive Marty Walsh means there is reason for optimism in a sport that has experienced three labor stoppages in the last three decades .
Bettman is in the process of interviewing owners and general managers, as well as Walsh and his more than 700 players, to find out what issues are most important to them.
The existing salary cap system and 50/50 revenue split are unlikely to change, and there is already an agreement to send NHL players to the 2026 and 2030 Olympics. This leaves a few topics open.
What are the problems?
After previous negotiations focused on how money would be divided, owners and players have shifted their focus to increasing revenue available to everyone. Thanks to new media rights deals in the US (with another coming to Canada in 2026) and new revenue streams such as the 4 Nations event, jersey and helmet advertising and a range of sponsorship deals, revenues are reaching new records each season.
Of course there are still points of contention.
The expansion fees went entirely to the owners, including $500 million when Vegas joined and $650 million from Seattle. Bettman has said there are currently no plans to expand to more than 32 teams, but it's no secret that there is interest from ownership groups in Atlanta and elsewhere, and whether that counts as hockey-related revenue – the one with the players be shared – could be a moot point.
The salary cap
The deciding factor for the salary cap is hockey revenue, which includes ticket sales, television money and more. With revenue remaining flat and only increasing minimally due to the pandemic, the cap for each team is now $88 million, with a projected $92.5 million next season.
With revenues rising, there is debate about whether players want to push for a quicker cap increase, which would result in higher salaries for players across the league.
“I like it smooth and even,” Bettman said in Boston. “There are no discussions yet. So when I say “smooth and stable” it doesn't mean I have any numbers in mind, and it doesn't mean the cap couldn't rise faster, but we're nowhere near anything like a substantive discussion about it.”
Walsh said players would love to see the cap raised because “it moves everyone up.”
“It’s not just about the top players,” Walsh said. “The point is that there are also opportunities for improvement for all other players. And I think that’s important for raising the cap and important for revenue.”
The 2020 CBA extension included caps on the escrow account withheld from players' paychecks to balance the 50/50 split. Something like this is expected to continue as discussions become more heated.
“It’s just a matter of deciding what things are important to you, what things you might want to do differently,” Washington Capitals assistant player representative Trevor van Riemsdyk said. “That's a difficult thing about all of this because not everyone is in the same situation. Some people are in the middle of long deals, others are looking for new deals, so you’re going to want different things.”
From a league perspective, the long-term injured reserve rules and the question of how much money teams spend over the cap could be among the requested optimizations. Player pensions, medical care and who has final say on surgeries, and the schedule that calls for a long preseason and hockey through the end of June could come up from the union side.
Why so hopeful?
The NHL, like other professional leagues, has a history of work stoppages. The 2004–05 lockout disrupted an entire season, and talks for the 2012–13 season pushed back the start to January.
It's hard to imagine such problems this time. The early start has led to some speculation that a new agreement could be finalized by late spring or early summer – more than a year ahead of the deadline.
Bettman said Walsh, a former federal labor secretary and before that mayor of Boston, “takes a very professional, sophisticated approach” and understands that “everyone does better when we work together.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t represent your constituents vigorously, but you choose the things that matter — and the places where you can work together, you should do so for the greater good,” Bettman said. “He understands this better than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
This will be Walsh's first CBA trial. Don Fehr, known for his longtime leadership of the Major League Baseball Players Association, was the union's executive director at the 2012-13 and 2020 talks, and before that it was Bob Goodenow in 2004-05.
“Marty obviously has a lot of experience working with unions,” van Riemsdyk said. “He's a tenacious guy, he worked in Boston and we have the utmost confidence in him and his ability to convey to the owners what's most important to the players.”
Walsh said the sport of hockey is in a transition phase far enough away from negotiations that it has not become a day-to-day focus, and Bettman cautioned against setting an artificial timeline for a new deal.
The NHL is also in a strong position given the quality of play on the ice and the booming business all around. It does no one any good to stop this dynamic.
“They probably had the greatest fiscal year, the greatest gate year, one of the greatest, if not the best year of television as far as audiences,” Walsh said. “Going into collective bargaining is a good place to be.”
