Report: NHL salary cap to rise by $4 million next season

The NHL Board of Governors (BOG) are meeting at the league's head offices in New York City, NY this week and amongst the BOG's list of 'to-do's' is to come to a consensus on what the league's salary cap should be for the 2023-24 season. Currently the salary cap is set at $82.5 million after being flat for three seasons at $81.5 million thanks to the economic downturn as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. For comparison's sake, the cap rose by $10 million in the three seasons preceding 2020.

With COVID-19 now mostly in the rear view mirror and with revenues back up for the NHL though, the league is hopeful that it can raise the salary cap by $4 million for the 2023-24 season. In fact, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman confirmed as much today stating that the cap will rise to $86.5 million should the players repay their escrow payments by the end of the season, as is expected.

From TSN NHL insider Pierre LeBrun:

That's a pretty stark contrast to the flat cap that the NHL has projected as late as this past offseason. Then again, I learned long ago to take everything that Bettman and the NHL say with a grain of salt. These men aren't exactly the most honorable, that's for sure.

In any case, an increase of $4 million would represent a substantial windfall for a lot of cap strapped teams like the Pittsburgh Penguins, Vegas Golden Knights, Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning and other Stanley Cup contenders. You can't help but feel like a team like the Colorado Avalanche would have been able to hold on to free agents like Darcy Kuemper and/or Nazem Kadri if they had an extra $4 million to throw around. In any case, it appears that it's back to business as usual for the NHL and if things keep on this current trajectory I wouldn't be surprised to see the league hit a $100 million salary cap within the next five years. Crazy to think when the cap was just $39 million way back in 2005-06 when it was first introduced.