84-game season among changes coming to NHL as part of new CBA

An 84-game season is coming to the NHL as part of an extension of the collective bargaining agreement that has been tentatively agreed to by the league and the Players’ Association.

They announced a memorandum of understanding Friday in Los Angeles before the first round of the draft. It still needs to be ratified by the Board of Governors and the full NHLPA membership.

Two games are being added to to the regular season, the maximum length of contracts players can sign is being shortened and a salary cap will be implemented in the playoffs for the first time, two people told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The NHL and NHLPA began negotiations in earnest this spring after agreeing at the 4 Nations Face-Off in February to jointly hold a World Cup of Hockey in 2028. With revenue breaking records annually and the cap increasing exponentially in the coming years, Commissioner Gary Bettman and union executive director Marty Walsh voiced optimism about reaching an agreement quickly. There were no disagreements on a host of major issues like in previous bargaining talks.

“There’s been tremendous growth, and what’s ahead is spectacular on many fronts,” said Toronto’s John Tavares, who’s going into his 17th season. “The predictability of things goes a long way, I think, for everyone in the sport. It’s great to have that partnership and how collaborative it’s been, which has been very different from 2012. It’s great to see and happy that the growth of the game and the sport and the business side of it is all kind of in sync and in synergy and we’re able to kind of continue to build off the many great things over the last few years.”

The extension through 2030 provides the sport extended labor peace since the last lockout in 2012-13, which shortened that season to 48 games. Here is what is changing:

Longer season

Going from 82 to 84 games beginning in 2026-27 — making the season 1,344 total games — is also expected to include a reduction in exhibition play, to four games apiece for the 32 teams.

The additions would be played within divisions, evening out the schedule to ensure four showdowns each season between rivals like Toronto and Boston, Dallas and Colorado and Washington and Pittsburgh. Currently, there is a rotation that has some division opponents facing off only three times a season.

That imbalance is coming to an end, and this is not the first time the NHL has had an 84-game season. The league experimented with that in 1992-93 and ’93-94, when each team added a pair of neutral site games.

Shorter contracts

Since 2013, players have been able to re-sign with their own team for up to eight years and sign with another for up to seven years. Under the new CBA, each would be reduced by a year, to seven for re-signing and six for changing teams.

Top players, given the injury risks in the sport, have preferred the longest contracts possible. The same goes for general managers, eager to keep talent in the fold as long as possible. Nathan MacKinnon, Sebastian Aho, Leon Draisaitl, Juuse Saros, Travis Konecny, Mathew Barzal and, as recently as March, Mikko Rantanen are all among the top players who have signed lucrative eight-year deals.

“I guess that could be a rarity now,” said Trent Frederic, who on Friday signed an eight-year contract to remain with the Oilers. “Eight years is better than seven. It’s good to lock in before that changes.”

But with the salary cap getting its biggest increases season by season over the next three years, the thinking had already begun to change. Auston Matthews re-signed for only four years with Toronto last summer, and Connor McDavid could also opt for a short-term contract extension with Edmonton.

Playoff cap

Currently, teams with players on long-term injured reserve can exceed the salary cap by roughly the amount of the players’ salaries until the playoffs begin.

Several times over the past decade, Stanley Cup contenders have used LTIR to activate players at the start of or early in the playoffs after they missed some or all of the regular season.

Florida did so with Matthew Tkachuk before winning the second of back-to-back titles, Vegas has done it with Mark Stone on multiple occasions, Tampa Bay with Nikita Kucherov and Chicago with Patrick Kane.

The rule has been criticized as an unfair loophole, a way to stockpile talent and then add even more for the postseason. After he and Carolina were eliminated by the Lightning in 2021, Dougie Hamilton quipped that the Hurricanes “lost to a team that’s $18 million over the cap.” Tampa Bay went back to back, and players wore T-shirts with that saying on it during their Cup celebration.

That will no longer be possible, though it’s not exactly clear how it will work.

What else?

There are some other changes in store, too: The league will standardize draft pick rights until players turn 22, clear the way for full-time emergency traveling goaltenders and will stop teams to instituting a dress code for players, according to a person familiar with the CBA who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Friday because details of the agreement were not being released.

Teams have been able to hold the rights to juniors players for two or three years, depending on their age, and for college players for four years; now those rights will be held until a player is 22. The change comes at a time when the NHL developmental pipeline is in flux after the NCAA decided that juniors players can be eligible to play U.S. college hockey.

“That would make a little more sense for development,” Washington Capitals assistant general manager Ross Mahoney said. “An example would be you would take a player out of the CHL, maybe he plays as an 18-, 19-year-old and now you want to sign him, but maybe he’s not quite ready for the (minors). So is it better to have him in (the American Hockey League) and have him healthy-scratched for a third of the games, or is it better for him to go play at North Dakota for two years and then sign?”

Emergency backup goalies, the beloved “EBUGs,” will soon be a thing of the past, years after the likes of David Ayres and Scott Foster went into games and won after a team’s two roster netminders were injured. Each team will be able to keep an extra goaltender around to practice with and enter a game, rather than having a beer league replacement on standby.

The fashion walk — most are familiar with videos and photos of well-dressed players walking into arenas before games — will also change as one of hockey’s older traditions goes by the wayside. Some teams have done away with requiring suits for players, instead going to warmup jackets and sweatpants, but now players can choose their own looks.