Welcome back in all to the world's #1 most trusted NHL salary cap article! This past week I stumbled on a couple Tweets and articles pertaining to the salary cap that were encouraging signs to me as to where the league is right now, and where it could be headed. Over the pandemic, the NHL lost a good amount of revenue as a massive source for NHL clubs is how many people go through those turnstiles on gameday. Keep in mind, this was before some of the new advertising opportunities teams have with sponsorships on sweaters and helmets, and also before digital ads on boards. And gambling, can't forget about gambling. Sure, it was a change to see Belle Tire on the Blackhawks helmets and a Volkswagen Atlas driving along during play, but these commodities helped clubs recover from what was a financially straining time. Now, the NHL has announced that the profits from last season were much higher than expected (good) and as a result, players will receive the full 6% of their escrow payments back, as agreed upon in the previous CBA. Basically, because of higher earnings players will be paid around 102% of their original salaries. The preemptive tax that held a balance at a 50/50 balance between league owners and players are now each seeing the benefits of a healthy league.

What does this mean for the salary cap? Right now, the salary cap ceiling is set at $88 million dollars with speculation this past December at the Board of Governors meetings that next season it could jump to as high as just over $92M. Yes, that number seems like it should jump even higher to say $94-$95M, but keep in mind that the current CBA guidelines allow up to 5% increase. Eventually, we'll get to the point of a $100M salary cap ceiling, but this is still extremely encouraging given the league projects clearing over $6.5 billion in revenue this season.

Let's use that $92M as a benchmark here, which clubs benefit from that the most? I came up with two, and that's the New York Islanders and the Washington Capitals.

For New York and any Isles that you roster in fantasy, this means breathing room to work to re-sign Brock Nelson, Kyle Palmieri, Alexander Romanov, and the big one on the list, Noah Dobson. That increase gives the Islanders around $25M in bank to work with over the offseason. I currently roster Dobson in fantasy and if you do as well, first we need to hope and pray his injury isn't serious, and second would be to not get into a negotiating tug of war this summer.

The Capitals I thought of because they're an interesting case to me. Maybe their internal plans have come along quicker than anticipated? I'm very curious here on just how this club is going to evaluate their roster moving forward but an extra bit of cash certainly helps this group. Going into the summer they have nine pending unrestricted free agents, two of them being their goaltending tandem, and one restricted free agent in Alexeyev Alexander that I would imagine gets sorted out without going to arbitration. I like where this club could be in a year, because as much as they need to weigh what they should allocate to each position group next season and beyond, what I did not mention is T.J. Oshie and Nicklas Backstrom as upcoming UFA's currently on LTIR. I would be very surprised here if there was a negotiation process with either of these two. For fantasy, I am not rostering any Capitals at the moment, but you can go down the list and find players all over this roster that you'd want to have on your roster. Dylan Strome is having a career season (way to go Blackhawks), Connor McMichael has burst onto the scene, Aliaksei Protas has made a big leap this season, and Alex Ovechkin…well, he's Alex Ovechkin. I poked fun at this club over the offseason for purchasing CapFriendly then signing Pierre-Luc Dubois, but stick taps to them, he's been a point-per-game player for them at times this season.

As far as the salary cap goes, it's directly influenced by the CBA, which is set to expire in September of 2026. I hope, and will give this a 60% chance here, that all parties involved meet and agree to finalize a new CBA this year. For that to happen though, we need a few important things to take place, in no particular order. There has to be an agreement on a salary cap come playoffs or at least have it on the table for discussion. Believe me, we're not talking about this right now but come playoffs when we see the cap gymnastics take place, it's going to enter back into the realm of conversation. NHL players playing in the Olympics will need to be decided upon…which, hand up you guys, I couldn't tell you heads or tails if this is something that we already have a handshake on between the NHL, IOC, and IIHF. I would say, that imagine all of these entities will agree to have players participate in the upcoming winter Olympics taking place in blind guess…Canmore AB. Okay, Milan. Close enough. Other pieces of business that at least be conversed upon before a decision will be made, include media rights with Rogers as that is set to expire; and I would venture to guess here NHL licensing comes into play as well. Those are the big items, and we'll leave speculation on expansion for another day, but we will all pretend to be shocked when we hear rumors of Atlanta and Houston 50 times between now and then.

*Salary Cap data from PuckPedia.com  

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