With the Washington Capitals off from game action until Thursday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets let's do some more Hockey 101 in the form of the NHL Board of Governors Meetings which are of course conducted by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.
In our last post we touched on the rising salary cap, some issues with owners but thankfully not involving the Capitals in any way. We are just a Caps blog so we'll stay away from that but you can also check out Chris Johnston and Pierre LeBrun's story from The Athletic here if you want to read on about that.
Quick recap of the salary cap. It could be around $92.5 million which is up from the current $88 million. Per Bettman, Hockey related revenue is expected to jump significantly over the next few years so there's an idea of a "phase in" approach that would mitigate a massive jump in two years. Bettman told The Athletic:
"Revenue continues to grow. We're projecting, in native currency, over $7 billion (combined U.S. and Canadian currency), probably $6.6 billion U.S., depending again on the Canadian dollar as we convert to hockey-related revenues, which is done in U.S. currency. "Bettman to The Athletic
Bettman added, "The cap, under the current guidelines in the collective bargaining agreement, would go up five percent. As we look at revenues, we're going to have discussions with the Players' Association about escrow levels and whether or not the cap can or should be tweaked a little more on an ongoing basis. But that's something we have to really work out with the Players' Association, and we're having those discussions."
The current CBA doesn't expire until September 2026 but there are signals from both sides about a possible early extension. Bettman added, "I don't want to prognosticate on collective bargaining. We have a very open, constructive relationship with the Players' Association right now. I find working with Marty Walsh and Ron Hainsey (NHLPA leaders) very constructive, very professional, very cordial. And so, we're not going to get ahead of ourselves and prognosticate what's going to happen. Although we hope do do this as quickly and seamlessly as possible."
The owners do want a potential schedule format change as part of the CBA but with the caveat that it depends greatly on talks with the NHLPA. The possible concept would be reducing the preseason and expanding it to 84 games.