New NHL rules may have unintended consequence on trade deadline
Photo credit: Imagn Images
The NHL and NHLPA recently announced they would implement some provisions of the new CBA almost a full calendar-year before the current CBA expires.
New CBA rules restrict trade-deadline deals and playoff rosters
One analyst, in fact, spoke about these changes with Hart Levine of PuckPedia who called the announcement shocking.
«I fell out of my chair," Levine said. "I did not think anything would come into place this year. I was wondering if some stuff would go into place on July 1, like the contract limits, but I never thought anything would go into place this year. You know who else was surprised? GMs. They had no clue that this was coming. It was pretty shocking.»
One CBA rule that is being implemented early and is receiving plenty of attention is the one that deals with playoff salary cap; it essentially prevents teams from using LTIR loopholes, like the one of which the Oilers were accused last year.
Back in April, the Oilers were among the teams scrutinized by the NHL for LTIR usage as the playoffs began.
«It was a close one as to whether he [Kane] was capable of playing at the end of the season and didn't," NHL's Bill Daly said "And we were concerned that if that were the circumstance, in case it may be a circumvention of the salary cap, and we made the Oilers aware of that...So, in any event, it's a closed matter. No repercussions.»
Under the new rule, clubs will have to keep their playoff roster under a defined cap number rather than there being no upper limit after the conclusion of the regular season.
Yet, the new rule won't stop the NHL watchdog from investigating possible infractions to the new LTIR rule next season.
"We look into the situations of players who are going to finish the season on LTIR," Daly said, "and who might become available early in the playoffs.
The other CBA rule that is being implemented in 2025-26 is the Double Retention rule, which now makes it harder for contenders to acquire players at the trade deadline, though also in general.
If a contending team. for example, has $2 million in accrued cap space at the deadline, it used to mean that they could still acquire a player with a cap hit of $8 million if they had two teams each retain on the contract.
The new rule essentially prevents this practice. Now, a team cannot retain on a contract that has already been retained within 75 regular season days of the first retention.
It's similar to what the Oilers did with Trent Frederic this past season, when they had the Bruins retain 50% and the Devils retain 25% of his contract.
«I tried to do some digging on why they made some of these rules," writer Tyler Yaremchuk wrote in an article about the CBA rules. "The NHL did not like the feeling that teams were kind of getting away with something or having some advantage over other teams and not following the spirit of the salary cap rules.»
While fair competition is expected in the NHL, restrictions which impede a contending team from building a roster can be unduly problematic. Yet, all 32 teams play by the same rules, so there's that...
| POLL | ||
SEPTEMBRE 10 | 250 ANSWERS New NHL rules may have unintended consequence on trade deadline Do you agree with the Playoff Salary Cap rule in the new CBA? | ||
| yes | 199 | 79.6 % |
| no | 51 | 20.4 % |
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