October got off to an interesting start, with the NHL Board of Governors meeting at the Westin New York on Tuesday. Among other topics discussed was the salary cap for the 2025-26 campaign, which will have been of significant interest to Vancouver Canucks fans.
The salary cap for this season is $88 million. As per PuckPedia, at the time of writing the Canucks have $90,833 of cap space remaining and 22 of 23 roster spots filled.
So what about next season's salary cap? Well, as reported by Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman advised that early projections have the number at $92.5 million.
Now Bettman did stress that this was only a ballpark figure and one which was extremely precautionary. Regardless, this does allude to how positive hockey-related revenues are looking these days, after the whole financial fallout which was caused by COVID-19.
Slightly higher than the last 2025-26 projection
Further, as we previously wrote, consider that previous projections for next season had the salary cap pegged at $92 million. Even an increase of another $500,000 on top of this helps, as every cent counts in the NHL when it comes to something as restrictive as the cap. (At least for the more financially lucrative teams, of which the Canucks are certainly one of these.)
In respect of the Canucks specifically, as things stand they have 16 of 23 roster spots assigned for the 2025-26 season. Using the projected figure of $92.5 million, this leaves $18,145,833 of available cap space to fill out the roster.
Another aspect we find interesting, is that this projected salary cap rise of $4.5 million is exactly the same figure as from last season to this one, i.e. $83.5 million to the aforementioned $88 million. So percentage wise, this means a lower increase of 5.11 percent for next season, compared to the figure of 5.39 percent from last season to this campaign.
(Historically speaking, the biggest increase was 14.32 percent for the 2007-08 season. The salary cap was first implemented for the 2005-06 NHL season, as a result of the 2004-05 lockout.)
CBA talks set to begin early next year
Is it possible that Bettman and company are already setting some battle lines for the upcoming collective bargaining agreement talks, which the commissioner says will begin in early 2025? (The current agreement expires in Sept. 2026.) The line of argument could be that even though hockey-related revenue is on the rise, it's not quite at the same pace as from last season to this?
We're just speculating of course, but anything is possible. Plus, everyone is well aware of how notorious Bettman is, about making sure the league wins every time they negotiate with the NHL players association.
In any event, all of that is for the future. For now, the Canucks have some idea of what salary cap they can expect for next season, giving general manager Patrik Allvin a figure to provisionally start working with.