‘Just makes sense for everybody’: NHL players react to playoff salary cap rule change
LAS VEGAS – The NHL and NHL Players’ Association have achieved labor peace through 2029-30, with the new collective bargaining agreement set to begin starting in 2026-27. But a few alterations in the new CBA were deemed urgent enough to push through during the final season of the current CBA, including the institution of a playoff salary cap. Previously, teams have been allowed to exceed the cap once the postseason starts; beginning in spring 2026, the roster for every playoff game must be compliant with the cap, which will be $95.5 million this season. According to the memorandum of understanding between the NHL and the PA, teams will have to list 18 skaters and two goalies for each playoff game, with an average salary calculated that must not exceed the cap.
Translation: the LTIR shenanigans will come to an end. There has been a strong recent correlation between Stanley Cup champions and using the playoff cap loophole to activate high-end players whose salaries easily would’ve pushed their teams over the cap. The 2020-21 Tampa Bay Lightning did so with Nikita Kucherov; the 2022-23 Vegas Golden Knights did it with Mark Stone; and the 2024-25 Florida Panthers pulled it off with Matthew Tkachuk. Not only have these teams had the luxury of adding their star players back without cap penalties, but they’ve been able to acquire additional salary while those players were on LTIR, as the Panthers did with Brad Marchand (albeit with 50 percent salary retention by Boston) last winter. Their Cup-clinching roster was believed to be $5 million north of the $88 million cap, per PuckPedia.
During Day 1 of the NHL Player Media Tour Monday in Vegas, the players weighed in on the change. How did they feel about the playoff cap? It depends on whom you asked.
Lightning blueliner Victor Hedman seemed uncertain, having played for a Cup team that benefitted from the LTIR loophole in 2020-21 and was believed to exceed the cap by around $18 million.
“It makes sense in one regard, but it’s tough when you have a super important player you know is going to be hurt for a long time, not to be able to [play],” he said. “I mean, you can [play him], but then someone has to sit come playoff time. You never know if he’s going to be back for Game 1 of the playoffs or the second round possibly. That’s going to be tough for GMs. But on the other hand, you have to follow that, just like you’ve followed the rules before.”
The Panthers’ Sam Reinhart expressed mixed feelings on the change, having played on a championship team boosted by the LTIR loophole but also having faced one when the Golden Knights beat the Panthers two years ago.
“That’s out of our control. We don’t put much into that. You hear about it with the winning team, the last couple of years, certainly in general, there’s been a lot of teams each playoffs that are in the same boat,” Reinhart said. “We’ve been on both ends of it. You look at with our injuries and our first year against Vegas in the Final, I think the cap was a little bit [lower] too. The Trade Deadline is when all that gets finalized and you start to know what to expect with your roster going into it. In Florida, we just play our game and trust that the guys behind the scenes in the offices and suits are going to give us the best opportunity to succeed.”
But the players on teams who have been on the receiving end against the ‘Super Teams’ in recent years seem to enthusiastically approve of the change, based on the sample of opinions offered Monday in Vegas.
“The playoff salary cap I think was like: that just makes sense to everybody,” said Boston Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy. “You shouldn’t be able to field a roster that’s $20 million over the cap, and I think everybody sort of understood that. If there was a pressing [CBA] issue you’d see play out immediately, that was probably the one. So I think that was a good job by [the NHL and NHLPA].”
“It will stop any team being way over the cap in the playoffs,” said New York Rangers left winger Will Cuylle. “I think it just makes for a more fair, even playing field in the playoffs. It should resolve it.”
“I think Tampa was like $20 million over the cap [in 2021],” said Montreal Canadiens center Nick Suzuki. “Teams found a way to loophole it, but it wasn’t against the rules, so you can’t really complain. We’ll see how that happens, how much teams are going to be different going in. It’s nice that each team has the same size of cap going into playoffs. We’ll see if it changes much.”
Not only will the cap change give GMs and coaches pause on which players to have active for each playoff game – it could alter behavior at the Trade Deadline, too. Any major acquisition will become part of an equation: will there still be room for him and our injured star once the latter comes back? If we acquire player X, who gets pushed out of the lineup when our team is fully healthy in the postseason?
It will be fascinating to see how the elimination of the loophole plays out next spring. But there’s a reason it got pushed through ahead of schedule; the support for it among the NHL clubs and players was evidently strong.
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