DETROIT -- NHL teams must dress lineups within the salary cap during the Stanley Cup Playoffs starting this season, NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said Wednesday at a meeting of coaches and general managers that touched on many topics.
“Playoff Cap Counting” is outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding between the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association, which agreed June 27 to a four-year extension of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
The current CBA expires Sept. 15, 2026. The new one begins the following day and runs through Sept. 15, 2030. But Daly said the playoff cap is among a list of changes that will start this season.
The NHL salary cap is rising by $7.5 million this season, from $88 million to $95.5 million.
“There were different motivations for putting things in different places,” Daly said. “There was no reason not to move forward with something that we thought could be addressed immediately.”
In the past, teams could dress lineups that exceeded the cap in the playoffs. Teams took advantage of the fact that players didn’t count against the cap when they went on long-term injured reserve in the regular season, and they bolstered their rosters.
The MOU states each team must list 18 skaters and two goalies for each playoff game, and an “Averaged Club Salary” will be calculated. It must be within the cap.
Teams must submit their first lineup to NHL Central Registry by 3 p.m. local time or five hours before their playoff opener, whichever is earlier. Changes for any subsequent game must be made by the same deadline.
Does that mean the end of game-time decisions?
“That’s a fair question,” Daly said. “Somebody actually asked me that after the meeting today. We’ve agreed on a framework for implementation. There will be a playoff cap this year. There will be changes to the LTIR this year. The exact implementation details of the cap are still being worked through.”
Daly said the NHL and the NHLPA have three categories of new provisions. Some will take effect this season. Others will take effect July 1, the start of the new League year. The rest will take effect when the new CBA begins.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said the list is lengthy, and the details will be released later.
“Wait till it’s done in writing,” he said. “You know how long the CBA is.”
The Canadian Hockey League and the United States Hockey League presented at the meeting, underscoring their importance to the development of NHL players. Daly said the NHL can and will reopen its agreement with the CHL before June 2026, and the CHL is concerned about allowing some 19-year-olds to play in the American Hockey League.
“They wanted to open a process to start discussing what that 19-year-old rule looks like,” he said. “Obviously, the Players’ Association will have a seat at the table for that and will have a say in what that looks like.”
NHL Hockey Operations went around the room and asked each coach where he felt the League could improve. The coaches brought up embellishment, coach’s challenge, and communication between officials and coaches at the benches.
“It was a good meeting,” said Colin Campbell, NHL senior executive vice president of hockey operations. “It was a healthy meeting. It’s always a good time when there wasn’t a tough game played yesterday or last week.”
Bettman said the NHL is striving for perfection, but hockey is a human game.
“The sense in the room was, the officiating is really good, and it’s really unfair to the world’s best officials in the toughest game to officiate when they get criticized on occasion,” he said. “And so, I think that was a good session and gave everybody the opportunity to be heard.”
