Midnight, Eastern Time
Fax machines were still rattling right to the wire. On Tuesday, across all 32 team offices, deals were signed, faxed and announced. Fast.
Because at midnight tonight, the NHL’s new collective bargaining agreement kicked in. It runs for four years. And it tears up a rule everyone knew by heart: a player can no longer re-sign for more than seven years with his own club. Six years if he signs elsewhere.
Eight years had been the limit since 2013. It was the big club teams used to keep their stars in house. That part of the book is closed now.
Try it for $0.99.
Tuesday’s scramble
Ottawa landed the biggest deal. Drake Batherson put pen to paper on $86M, the richest contract in Senators history. The previous record belonged to Tim Stutzle, whose eight-year, $66.8M deal was signed in September 2022. Batherson’s cap hit will come in at $10.75M from 2027. The winger has set a new personal points best in seven straight seasons. Only one other player had ever done that in league history: Vic Stasiuk, from 1953 to 1960.
Washington ticked off two deals in the same day. Justin Sourdif got eight years and $50.8M.
And this isn’t some one-off. Since the June 2025 agreement between the league and the union, 34 players have signed eight-year deals. Thirteen of them in the last three months. Cale Makar set the all-time high at $163.2M.
The cap, the other driver
There’s a simple accounting answer. The salary cap has risen from $95.5M to $104M this season. It will climb to $113.5M in 2027-28, right when most of these contracts are due to start. League revenues are soaring, and general managers have decided to lock things up now.
Another wrinkle mattered too: from today, a contract can no longer include more than 60% of its value in signing bonuses. Carolina and New Jersey got their business done just before the switch. Jordan Staal signed a one-year extension with the reigning champions, with $900,000 in salary and a $4M bonus.
What happens next in a market without eight-year contracts? Nobody really knows. There isn’t any history to go on.
Discover the rest of the NHL news on our mathodds website and app!
in your pocket.
Real-time notifications & alerts
Leave a Reply