Report: NHL salary cap to go up $10 million by 2025

According to a report from Sportsnet NHL insider Elliotte Friedman, general managers across the league are preparing for a "sharp rise" in the league's salary cap over the next few seasons.

From Friedman:

According to multiple sources NHL teams have been given some guidance on where the cap could be going over the next few seasons. Please understand these are projections and possibilities and an educated guess on where we could be going, not a guarantee of where things will be.

- Elliotte Friedman

"I’ve seen some preliminary estimates recently which would make me more optimistic on the cap going up sooner whether that’s in two seasons or three seasons, I think it’s more likely than not two seasons rather than three," Bill Daly said on Friedman's most recent 32 Thoughts podcast earlier this month. 

Friedman reports that he expects the cap to rise by $5 million in the next two seasons and $10 million just three seasons from now.

Check out this table of expected increases:

Needless to say, there's more than a few teams out there who could use an extra $10 million to work worth...

Teams like the Vegas Golden Knights, Edmonton Oilers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning, Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins are all tight, tight, tiiiiiight to the NHL's $82.5 million salary cap and will be in tough to make any additions next offseason if the cap stays flat. Think of a team like the Ottawa Senators, the Vancouver Canucks or the New Jersey Devils who all have top young players to sign in the coming seasons. This news is an absolute godsend for teams like that.

Or better yet, how about the Maple Leafs and the Bruins? How much more straightforward will negotiations with Auston Matthews and David Pastrnak be if general managers were assured a $10 million increase in the cap? I don't suspect that either team is at much risk of losing these two players, but this news from Friedman essentially gives the teams a bit of extra cushion room to get the deals done.

It also means that Nathan MacKinnon's record setting $12.6 million cap hit isn't likely to remain the NHL's highest salary for long. In fact, don't be surprised if Matthews himself surpasses that annual average salary once he's up for a contract renewal in the summer of 2024.