The Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is a contract between the NHL and the NHLPA (National Hockey League Players' Association) that governs all aspects of how the league and its players operate. The current CBA expires on September 15th 2026, and a new CBA has been approved and will start Sept. 16th 2026 (Although some changes will be implemented early.)

TOP 10 CHANGES

For a full breakdown of each change, see below.

1. PLAYOFF SALARY CAP: The roster on the ice for playoff games must be cap compliant (effective: 2025-26 Playoffs)

2. LTIR CAP RELIEF: If a player is scheduled to return from injury in the same season/playoffs, the team will only be allowed to replace them with a player up to $3.82M, instead of the full amount of their cap hit (effective: 2025-26 Season)

3. CONTRACT TERM LIMITS: The maximum contract length will be 6 years for players going to new teams, or 7 years for players remaining on their current team (effective: September 16th, 2026)

4. DOUBLE RETENTION TRADES: Teams can no longer reduce a player’s cap hit to 25% by doing a “Double Retention Trade” (effective: 2025-26 Season)

5. DEFERRED SALARY: Teams can no longer defer salary on a player’s contract. (effective: October 7th, 2025)

6. FRONT-LOADED SALARY STRUCTURE: Teams can no longer front-load a contract, paying the majority of the value up front (effective: September 16th, 2026)

7. LEAGUE MINIMUM SALARY: League minimum salary will gradually increase from $775K to $1M by 2029-2030. (effective: March 1st, 2026)

8. ENTRY LEVEL MAXIMUM COMPENSATION: The maximum value of entry-level contracts will be League Minimum + $175k. (effective: March 1st, 2026)

9. PERFORMANCE BONUS ELIGIBILITY: Adjusted criteria for players returning from serious injury when related to signing deals that include performance bonuses. (effective: September 16th, 2026)

10. 19-YEAR-OLD CHL PLAYERS IN AHL: Teams will be allowed to assign one 19-year-old CHL player to the AHL (effective Pending CHL approval for 25-26 season)

FULL BREAKDOWN OF THE TOP 10 CHANGES

PLAYOFF SALARY CAP: 2025-26 Playoffs

Arguably the biggest change coming for the 2026 playoffs is one that fans and GMs have been asking for for years. A team’s 20-man roster will need to be cap compliant for all Playoff games.

Key notes:

• Bonuses are excluded from a player’s playoff cap hit (this gives even more reason for players eligible for bonuses to take bonus-laden deals) (more on bonuses below)

• Players cap hits are not pro-rated.

  • For example:
    • If a team acquires a 10M player exactly 50% of the way through the regular season, that player would only cost 5M (50% of their actual AAV)
    • However, in the playoffs, their full 10m cap hit would be their actual playoff cap hit.
      • If another team is retaining a portion of the acquired player’s salary, their new reduced salary will be their playoff salary.

• Buyouts, cap penalties, retained salaries, and buried contracts will all count towards the playoff cap.

  • For example:
    • If a team buries a contract in the AHL for a period of time, a penalty cap hit would accrue each day of the regular season. The accrued number at the end of the regular season would also count against the playoffs salary cap.

• If a team retaining salary on a player makes the playoffs, the retained salary cap hit will be prorated to the date of when the player was traded off the roster.

  • For example:
    • If a team trades away a $2M contract exactly 75% of the way through the season, and they retain 50% on it ($1M), the $1M retention would be prorated to $250k in the playoffs.

All of these new rules are to avoid cap “circumvention” by stashing players on LTIR and having them return for game 1 of the playoffs. This has been done by many teams in recent history. While this wasn’t against the rules, it was an obvious edge that GMs had been using to gain a significant advantage.

Example:

A great example of this scenario came in the 2020-21 season when the Tampa Bay Lightning placed Nikita Kucherov on LTIR for the entire season due to hip surgery. His recovery was timed perfectly for him to return for game 1 of the playoffs. Since Kucherov’s $9.5m cap hit was on LTIR, the Lightning were able to re-sign key players, as well as bring in players such as David Savard at the trade deadline to bolster their lineup. In the playoffs, the Lightning iced a lineup of roughly $99.5m, which at the time was $18m over the regular season salary cap.

LTIR CAP RELIEF: 2025-26 Season

In the past, teams were able to “replace” the full value of an injured player’s contract if that player was placed on LTIR. This rule has now changed:

• Teams are only able to get up to $3.82M* relief for any injured player *IF* that player plans on returning that season/playoffs

  • *The $3.82M is calculated based on the average salary from the previous year (2024-25). This number will change each year.

• If the player will not return that season/playoffs due to injury (and the team has confirmed this with the NHL), the team can replace their full cap hit.

Example:

• Matthew Tkachuk was placed on LTIR after sustaining an injury at the 2025 4 Nations Faceoff in the 2024-25 season.

• The Florida Panthers were able to use the full $9.5M cap relief to acquire Seth Jones from the Chicago Blackhawks, and Brad Marchand from the Boston Bruins.

• Starting in the 2025-26 season, the Florida Panthers will not be able to use Tkachuk’s full 9.5M cap space to replace - they will only be able to replace up to $3.82M of it UNLESS they formally rule Tkachuk out for the entire remainder of the season AND playoffs.

There will likely still be teams that replace LTIR players in the regular season, but only with contracts up to 3.82M. Once the playoffs start, the GM and coaches will need to make decisions on which players to scratch to stay below the salary cap.

CONTRACT TERM LIMITS: September 16th, 2026

New contracts are now going to be limited to 6 years for players signing with new teams, and 7 years for players who are resigning with their current team (as long as they were on that team at the most recent trade deadline).

Not only will players be unable to sign 8 year deals moving forwards, but there will also no longer be players contracts being moved days ahead of the July 1st opening of free agency to allow teams to extend for 8 years.

Example:

Mitch Marner was traded from the Toronto Maple Leafs to the Vegas Golden Knights prior to the official opening of Free Agency. This allowed the Vegas Golden Knights to offer Marner an 8th year on his contract. The trade also allowed the Maple Leafs to acquire an asset (Nicolas Roy) for Marner rather than lose him for nothing.

DOUBLE RETENTION TRADES: 2025-26 Season

There is a new rule that is likely to drastically reduce the amount of players who have had their cap hit reduce to only 25% of the original value (Double Retention Trades)

• A “Double Retention Trade” is when a player's salary (and cap hit) is retained twice through two trades, meaning two different teams each retain a portion of the contract.
• This can happen in the following order of operations:
  • The player is traded from Team A to Team B (Team A retains up to 50% cap hit)
  • The player is then traded from Team B to Team C (Team B retains up to 50% on the already reduced cap hit)
  • Team C is the final team to receive the player, which they could receive at only 25% of the player’s original cap hit.

The new rule states that teams cannot retain on a contract that has already been retained on within 75 regular season days of the first retention.

Example:

The most recent example of a double retention trade would be when Trent Frederic was traded from the Boston Bruins to the New Jersey Devils, and then to the Edmonton Oilers.

• Frederic traded from Boston to New Jersey, with NJ retaining 50%. Frederic’s cap hit went from $4.6M down to $2.3M.
• Frederic was then traded from NJ to Edmonton, also with 50% retention on the 2.3M cap hit.
• Frederic’s final cap hit was now $1.15M for Edmonton.

This will no longer be possible, unless New Jersey was to hold onto Frederic for over 75 regular season days.

DEFERRED SALARY: October 7th, 2025

Teams will no longer be allowed to defer salary on new contracts. This does not affect current contracts that have deferred salary.

Teams noted the power of deferring salary and started using it as a way of lowering cap hits to give themselves an edge. The new CBA starting in 2026-27 will no longer allow for new contracts to include any deferred salary clauses.

Examples:

The Carolina Hurricanes are saving nearly $0.5M per year against the salary cap due to deferring $15.7M of Seth Jarvis’ $63M contract. Jarvis is set to receive the deferred salary after his contract expires on July 1st 2032.

John Tavares signed a 4 year extension with the Toronto Maple Leafs. His actual average annual salary would have been $4.5m, but by deferring 2m of the salary, the actual AAV cap hit will be $4.38m.

Other players with deferred salary:

Jaccob Slavin

Jake McCabe

Frank Vatrano

FRONT-LOADED SALARY STRUCTURE: September 16th, 2026

New contracts can no longer have heavy front-loading of salary. Contract salary structure will be much more rigid, and will not have much variance between years. (For ease of comprehension, salary is referring to salary + bonuses)

• The difference in salary between adjacent years of the contract cannot be more than 20% in difference from the salary in the first year of the deal.
• The salary of any particular year is not allowed to be less than 71% of the salary on the highest year (of that same contract).

Example:

Mitch Marner’s contract is $15m in the first year, and $10m in the final year. 10m is only 66.67% of 15m, whereas the minimum threshold will now be set at 71%.

LEAGUE MINIMUM SALARY: March 1st, 2026

The minimum NHL contract salary will increase to $1,000,000 over the 4 years of the 2026-27 CBA.

ENTRY LEVEL MAXIMUM COMPENSATION: March 1st, 2026

The maximum compensation for Entry Level Contracts will be adjusted as seen below:

PERFORMANCE BONUS ELIGIBILITY: September 16th, 2026

The rule for "Performance bonus eligibility for injured veterans" has been changed:

The criteria for contracts signed before September 16th, 2026

• Players meeting the following criteria can sign with performance bonuses:
  • The player was on LTIR for 100+ days in the previous season.
  • The player has played 400+ NHL games.
  • The player signs a 1-year contract.

The criteria for contracts signed after September 16th, 2026

• Players meeting the following criteria can sign with performance bonuses:
  • The player was on LTIR for 100+ days OR spent the final 70+ regular season days on the Injured Reserve List.
  • The player did not play in more than 2 playoff games.
  • The player has played 400+ NHL games.
  • The player signs a 1-year contract.

19-YEAR-OLD CHL PLAYERS GAINING AHL ELIGIBILITY: Pending CHL approval for 25-26 season

This rule change is critical to the development of many teams’ top CHL prospects. It is worth noting that (as of September 10th 2025) this rule has not formally been agreed upon by the CHL. The full item from the CBA will be explained below.

Purpose: There has been a long-time rule that players cannot play in the AHL until they are in their 20-year-old season if they are signed to a CHL team. This rule change would allow ONE player per team to start developing in the AHL one year earlier.

Full item from the CBA:

“NHL will reopen its agreement with the CHL to seek to eliminate the mandatory return rule for 19-year-old Players. NHL will seek to limit NHL Clubs to Loaning no more than one (1) 19-year-old Player per year to the AHL without the requirement of first offering such Player to his junior Club.”

Example:

Shane Wright made the Seattle Kraken immediately after being drafted 4th overall. After playing 8 NHL games, Seattle chose to scratch him enough times to be eligible to be assigned to their AHL affiliate for conditioning (circumventing having to return to his OHL team). The unique conditioning stint rule is very rarely used, but Seattle thought this was the best development path for Shane Wright at the time, rather than reporting to the Kingston Frontenacs of the OHL, who at the time were on pace to miss the playoffs.

Once the Kingston Frontenacs had traded Shane Wright to the Windsor Spitfires, Seattle sent him down to the Spitfires.

With this new (potential) rule in the 2026 CBA, Shane Wright could have played the entire year in the AHL, which seems like the development path that the Kraken wanted for him all along.

OTHER NOTABLE RULE CHANGES:

1. QUALIFYING OFFERS: September 16, 2026

The qualifying offer thresholds for RFAs have been updated.

When a RFA’s contract is expiring, the team must extend them a minimum qualifying offer to retain their rights. If they do not, that player will become a UFA.

2. EMERGENCY RECALLS: September 16, 2026

When a team doesn’t have enough cap space to ice 18 skaters, the team must play short 1 player for 1 game before they can use the “Roster Emergency Exception”.

Prior to September 16, 2026, teams using emergency recall were allowed to recall a player of league minimum salary + $100K. The recalled player would not count against their salary cap in any way.

Starting September 16th, 2026, this rule will now be:

“Teams using emergency will be allowed to recall a player of league minimum salary + 375K. A cap penalty of the remaining cap space a team has available will be applied.”

3. MIDSEASONS PTOs: 2025-26 Season

Teams will now be allowed to sign players to a 10-day PTO at any point during the season. This could create some unique scenarios, but it is worth noting that a player must be on their team’s roster at the time of the trade deadline to be eligible for playoffs.

4. RECALLING PLAYERS AFTER THE TRADE DEADLINE: 2025-26 Season

Teams were previously only allowed to recall 4 players after the trade deadline (unless on an emergency basis). This has been upped to 5 players, but teams may only have a maximum of 4 on the NHL roster at any point.

5. PAPER LOANS: 2025-26 Season

Teams can no longer use “paper” demotions (sending a player down for a day and immediately recalling them without reporting) to bank cap space.

• Players who are sent to the minors must now play in 1 or more games with the assigned minor league club before they can be recalled.
• This does not apply to goaltenders if the NHL team has less than two goaltenders available to dress in the team’s next game.

Previously seen scenarios:

Teams would send players down to their minor league affiliate (on paper) for 1 day to save on their daily cap hit. A player on a league minimum deal of $775,000 has a daily cap hit of $4,036. If they are sent to the minors, the NHL team would accrue cap space for that day, which would create flexibility for their salary cap picture come trade deadline/playoffs. For some teams, every dollar counts!

Source - 2025 MOU