Key Takeaways
- The new NHL CBA is going to hurt Canadian teams in the future as they look to lure in stars north of the border.
- RG breaks down all the changes that will affect clubs across the league.
- We also spoke to a league source who shed light on the impact these CBA changes will have.
Oilers' Ken Holland (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
The NHL’s latest Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) tweaks may seem subtle on the surface, but they’re already casting a long shadow over how teams manage trades, contracts, and salary structure.
Quietly, the league has placed tighter controls on salary retention, contract bonuses, and front-loading—each of which could significantly change how business is done across the NHL, especially for cap-strapped or tax-disadvantaged clubs. These new changes, while designed to promote long-term financial parity, may instead result in reduced flexibility and a colder trade market.
Let’s break down what’s changed, who’s affected, and why this could make things even harder for Canadian teams already operating under less favorable tax laws and limited cap tools.
Retention Rule Change Could Ice Trade Creativity
One of the most consequential CBA changes is the new limitation on retaining salary on a contract multiple times. Previously, a team could trade a player and the acquiring team could flip that same player while retaining salary again. It was a common workaround used to get expensive players to contending teams at a reduced cap hit. But under the new rules, once a team retains salary on a player’s contract, that contract cannot be retained again for 75 days.
The catch? The 75-day clock pauses during the offseason and only resumes once the regular season starts again. This effectively closes a huge offseason loophole where teams could flip players with retained salary in quick succession, often with third-party brokers eating cap hits in exchange for late-round picks.
If an SPC is subject to a Retained Salary Transaction, a second Retained Salary Transaction for such SPC may not occur within seventy-five (75) Regular Season days of the first Retained Salary Transaction. For purposes of clarity, days outside of the Regular Season schedule (i.e., Playoffs, off-season and training camp) do not count towards the required seventy-five (75) Regular Season days and therefore such restriction may span multiple League Years.
This new rule will restrict the type of creative, multi-team trades we’ve grown used to at both the deadline and draft. Think about big deals in recent memory involving double-retained salaries—like Patrick Kane’s move to New York or Max Domi’s path to Dallas. These deals relied on intermediaries to help make the cap hits manageable. Going forward, unless a team is willing to wait almost three months to flip a player with retention, these types of trades may dry up entirely.
“It’s going to make things complicated, that’s for sure,” said a league source. “It’ll be on teams to get more creative. Could we see teams trade rental players 75 days before trade deadline, to allow for that player to be traded without double retention? It would change the leverage dynamic of the deadline.”
This is especially problematic for rebuilding teams looking to weaponize their cap space. Teams like Arizona or San Jose, who’ve made a habit of eating salary to collect draft capital, will have fewer options to act as brokers. Buyers, in turn, may have a harder time acquiring impact players unless they’re willing to absorb the full financial burden.
“Weaponizing cap space has been a huge part of the game. It just seems unfortunate that the players agreed to further restrict potential movement and possible get themselves stuck in a bad situation,” continued the source.
Bonus Restrictions Will Hurt Canadian Clubs the Most
The CBA’s new clause around player bonuses could quietly be one of the most harmful to Canadian franchises. The update dictates that performance and signing bonuses can now only account for up to 60% of a player’s total salary within the life of a contract. While this might seem aimed at promoting salary balance, the implications are clear—teams in high-tax provinces and cities will be hit the hardest.
Aggregate Signing, Roster and/or Reporting Bonuses are limited to 60% of the aggregate compensation payable under the contract.
Canadian teams like Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, and Vancouver often rely on signing bonuses to attract top talent. Why? Because player earning income in Canada is taxed at significantly higher rates compared to those in states like Florida, Texas, or Nevada, which have no state income tax.
By loading contracts with 90% of a contracts value in signing bonuses, teams could help players manage their tax burdens while still offering competitive financial packages. A clause in the former NAFTA agreement, currently still in effect, allows signing bonuses to be taxed a lower rate for players that set up their “home camp" in the United States, rather than in Canada. Here's a pretty clear explanation from RBC, if you want to learn more.
This was a tactic the Maple Leafs used liberally in the early years of the Auston Matthews, William Nylander and John Tavares contracts, with bonuses making up the bulk of their earnings.
Matthews, a resident of the state of Arizona, only earns $775K in salary for the upcoming 2025-2026 season; but has a whopping $14.43M in signing bonuses, bringing his total earnings for the season to $15.2M.
However, he is being taxed significantly less on those bonuses because of the cross-border exemption, he is taxed from his tax domicile (Arizona) and not in Toronto, saving him millions in taxes every year.
Even Canadian-born and European-born players that set up their housing and finances in the United States can benefit from this tax loophole on a general basis with a lot of paperwork (kudos to the various agencies on this front).
By limiting the use of signing bonuses, it becomes significantly harder for Canadian teams to offer deals that match the real take-home value of contracts signed in the U.S.
Consider this: a $10 million contract in Florida has a vastly different net value than the same contract in Ontario or Quebec, where provincial and federal tax rates can take upwards of 50%.
Even though the team that utilizes the signing bonus benefit the most is the Florida Panthers, ensuring that 40% of a player's total salary is subject to local taxes still weighs more heavily on high-tax teams than on no-tax teams.
By limiting singing bonus usage, the league has significantly hampered one of the few levers Canadian teams could pull to level the playing field.
“It certainly hurts high-tax teams like those in Canada, in New York and in California,” continued the source. “But there are still other avenues of going about it. It’s not like signing bonuses are gone entirely, but it won’t be as aggressive as before.”
In a previous interview with Montreal Canadiens Executive Vice-President, Jeff Gorton, he seemed confident that his club could still work around these limitations.
“There are ways we can do certain things in Quebec and Montreal to help alleviate the tax issues,” said Gorton. “We’re excited about Montreal and where we’re going, and I feel like, around the league, people are taking notice.”
No More Front-Loading: Impact on Canadian Teams
Another crucial clause in the new CBA is a restriction on front-loaded contracts. Teams can no longer include the majority of a contract’s total revenue in the first few seasons, meaning total contract salary has to be more evenly distributed across the length of a contract.
Specifically, a player’s salary in any year cannot be more than 20% or less than 71% of the salary in the previous season. This effectively closes the door on back-diving or heavily front-loaded contracts that were once used to manipulate cap structure.
“For all "Front-Loaded SPCs", the difference between the stated Player Salary and Bonuses in any immediately adjacent League Years of that SPC cannot exceed twenty (20) percent of the stated Player Salary and Bonuses of the first League Year of such Front-Loaded SPC. Additionally, under no circumstances may the stated Player Salary and Bonuses in any League Year of a Front-Loaded SPC be less than seventy-one (71) percent of the highest stated Player Salary and Bonuses in a League Year of that same Front-Loaded SPC.
This change seems clearly aimed at eliminating contracts like the one recently signed by Vladislav Gavrikov, whose real salary will decline by almost 50% from Year 1 to Year 7 of his contract. While those contracts were mostly a thing of the past due to previous CBA modifications, this new rule adds even more rigidity to long-term contract planning.
This change will also limit how teams can structure deals to provide early-career security to young stars while minimizing long-term risk. It’ll be harder to offer massive early payouts to entice players to stay, especially if teams also want to gradually decrease salary commitments in the later years of the deal. Structuring a deal like Nathan MacKinnon’s new extension, with rising salaries and escalating cap hits, may become the new norm—regardless of whether teams prefer front-loaded security.
Tighter Controls Could Lead to Tighter Rosters
While the CBA changes are aimed at promoting fairness and long-term planning, they risk stifling the very innovation that made NHL front offices exciting to follow. The ability to weaponize cap space, sweeten deals with signing bonuses, or structure contracts creatively allowed teams—especially disadvantaged ones—to stay competitive.
“Like every new modification to the NHL CBA, teams will have to adjust,” said an NHL exec. “The reduced contract lengths, limited retention opportunities and all that will just force general managers to rethink their strategy.”
But, at a time where player movement and trade activity was supposed to take off — it didn’t — these changes could hamper the process even more. With fewer tools at their disposal, GMs may find themselves playing it safe, leading to fewer trades, slower offseasons, and more predictable outcomes.
If the NHL’s goal was to foster parity, it may have missed the mark. What we could be left with is not a more balanced league, but one where creative thinking takes a back seat to cautious conformity—and that’s not what fans or teams should want.
