Well there go the LTIR-created playoff superteams!
The changes that will come with the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the players and the NHL, such as the shortening of the max term of a contract max term from eight years to seven, were all meant to take effect starting next year. It appears however that both parties have agreed to let this particular change, the playoff salary cap, take effect for the 2025-26 season.
Previously, the absence of a playoff salary cap essentially created a loophole where teams could bar their injured players from returning before the postseason and off the LTIR in order to hold additional cap space during the season to add talent via trades or free agency (mainly trades). Some of the more infamous examples include the Lightning holding out Nikita Kucherov for all of the covid-shortened 2021 season to build a $100 million roster and the Golden Knights holding Mark Stone for three consecutive years from 2022-2024, which allowed them to trade for Ivan Barbashev, Tomas Heartl, and Noah Hanifin over the 2022 and 2023 trade deadlines.
For now, the team most affected is the Florida Panthers. Matthew Tkachuk was (and still will) schedule to go on LTIR this season and return by January or February. However, Nikita Kucherov was also expected to return about a month before the trade deadline before Tampa shelved him for the rest of the postseason. It was very likely that the same was about to happen for Tkachuk, (possibly with another phantom injury vs Canada at the Winter Olympics?) which would have allowed Florida to not only keep a forward like Evan Rodrigues, who they otherwise would have had to deal away to stay cap compliant, but to also trade for more talent at the trade deadline. Now, the Panthers will have to deal away some roster players by the time they activate Tkachuk to stay cap compliant at all times, including the postseason.
Previously, this loophole created a sellers market as it created more buyers in the overall market and thus a higher demand for each individual player being traded by a rebuilder. Now, teams like Florida likely will not be buying at the deadline which actually decreases the demand and price for the sellers’ players. A player like Brock Nelson is less likely to fetch both a premium prospect like Calum Ritchie and a first round pick, albeit from the Colorado Avalanche. It is possible that we see a buyer’s market this season with upcoming free agents like Kirill Kaprizov and Artemi Panarin having the potential to be dealt as rentals, combined with the lack of buyers as a result of having to stay cap compliant. (In a buyer’s market, the trade price for each player is often below the player’s actual trade value). Perhaps the Carolina Hurricanes, who project to have over $11 million in cap space, can finally acquire a superstar forward such as Kaprizov or Panarin?
