What you need to remember about the NHL for this season

Just over two months ago, the Carolina Hurricanes were winning the Stanley Cup, the Toronto Maple Leafs were drafting Gavin McKenna, and a flurry of trade action was re-shaping various teams around the league. Now, in what feels like a blink of an eye, a new NHL season is just around the corner — and it will begin a little earlier than we've become accustomed to.

Labour Day is next week, which will be followed by the Player Media Tour in Las Vegas, and then the opening of training camps across the league a week later. The pre-season schedule will be much shorter this year so we can get to what really matters, quicker. It's hard to believe, but in less than a month from now, the 2026-27 NHL season will be off and running.

So just before we get back into it, let's start with some stretching and remind you about some key topics:

What you'll notice about a new CBA: Longer seasons, contract changes

Officially, the league and the players' association will welcome in a new CBA on Sept. 16. This was something the two sides ratified in the summer of 2025 and continues labour peace through the 2029-30 season.

But what will you, the fan, notice under this new agreement?

• Contract lengths. As of Sept. 16, the longest a player can re-sign with his own team for is seven years (down from eight), and the longest he can sign with a new team for is six years (down from seven). So, the first players who will be affected by this are the members of the 2027 free-agent class of UFAs and RFAs.

• Season length. Outside of work stoppages and the two seasons impacted by the pandemic, the NHL has had an 82-game schedule in place since 1995-96, but that changes in 2026-27, as teams will play 84 regular-season games each. The NHL last had an 84-game schedule in the 1992-93 and 1993-94 seasons.

• The pre-season is shorter, too, which means the regular season will begin earlier. The puck drops on Tuesday, Sept. 29.

Some of the details in this new CBA were adopted early and came into action last season. That includes rules on a playoff salary cap for game lineups, and a limit on LTIR relief for players who will return during the season. As a reminder: if a player is on LTIR and expected to return, the maximum relief a team can get is the average salary from last season (just under $4 million). A team can only get full relief on a salary above that number if a player is ruled out for the rest of the season and playoffs, and the team goes over $4 million into its LTIR pool.

EBUGs

Emergency backup goaltenders have had some shining moments over the years, with perhaps the most well-known case being David Ayres' win with Carolina over Toronto in 2020 with eight saves on 10 shots. These EBUGs have been players with all sorts of backgrounds, including a Zamboni driver and an accountant.

Previously, home teams had to have an EBUG ready on game night, available to either team that may need him. They were not members of the team or on the roster and would be paid an hourly rate whether or not they got into a game. But the rules are changing.

Beginning this season, all 32 teams must employ their own Emergency Goaltender Replacement, to be available for all home and away games. No longer must the home team provide an EBUG for a visitor.

These Emergency Goaltender Replacements still will not be roster players and will not count towards the salary cap, but they will travel and practise with the team and may be employed in other ways, too. For example, 25-year-old Dolan Gilbert will be Seattle's emergency netminder this season, and will also work in their research and development department in some capacity. The Minnesota Wild named Peter Thome as their emergency netminder, and he'll also hold a role as a hockey operations analyst.

Per the CBA, these goalies have to fit the following criteria to be approved by the league:

• have not played an NHL game under a standard players' contract

• have not played in more than 80 professional hockey games

• have not played professional hockey in the prior three seasons

• do not have another current contractural obligation that would preclude the ability to serve as the team's Emergency Goaltender Replacement

• and not be on the reserve list or restricted free agent list of an NHL team

Adjusting expectations for goalies

If you look at a goalie's statistics from last season and see an .899 save percentage, your first instinct might be to scoff and presume that player had a bad season. And, sure, perhaps that netminder didn't have a career year at that rate, but consider this: the league-average save percentage was .896, the lowest since it was .895 in 1993-94.

Last season, 24 goalies who played at least 20 games finished with a .900 save percentage or better; in 2024-25, 32 netminders stopped at least 90 per cent of the shots they faced.

We also fell from four goalies posting a .920 or better save percentage in 2024-25 down to just one a season later (Scott Wedgewood).

The league-average save percentage has been dropping for years now, peaking at .915 in 2014-15 and 2015-16 and declining each year since.

To get a better measure of a goalie, we perhaps have to change our patterns and look more closely at high-danger save percentage and goals saved above expected to get a sense for how a goalie performs relative to his environment.

The contract game has changed

In years past we've seen Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Leon Draisaitl and Auston Matthews become the highest-paid players in the league by AAV, which was nothing out of the ordinary. When Kirill Kaprizov inked his own eight-year extension last year, his $17-million AAV greatly surpassed Draisaitl's $14 million and was set to make the Wild star the league's new highest-paid player by AAV when it kicked in for the 2026-27 season.

But now that Year 1 of Kaprizov's deal has arrived, he's already been surpassed by two players who previously might not have been in this realm.

Through an offer sheet from the Flyers, Anaheim centre Leo Carlsson will make $18 million against the cap this season to top the league. And while he is a great player on the rise, Carlsson is just 21 and this is the first contract he's signed after his entry-level deal with the Ducks. Similarly, the San Jose Sharks got a jump on the 2027 RFA market by re-signing Macklin Celebrini a year early, giving him an $18.8 million AAV on a deal that begins next season.

The flat cap era is a distant memory now, and with the cap ceiling (and floor, we should mention) rising so quickly, it no longer makes sense to compare past AAVs to current ones. Cap-hit percentage is the more important number now, since it more neatly compares deals signed today to ones signed five years ago.

But even by cap percentage, the game is changing for the biggest superstars. Consider that when Draisaitl signed his then-league-high $14 million AAV, it accounted for 14.66 per cent of the cap in its first season. When Matthews signed his then-league-high $13.25 million AAV, it was 15.06 per cent of the cap in Year 1. And when MacKinnon signed his $12.6 million AAV in 2022, it made up 15.09 per cent of the cap in the first year.

Now you have Kaprizov making 16.35 per cent of the upper limit, Carlsson making 17.31 per cent and Celebrini projected to be at 16.56 per cent when his deal begins next fall.

The maximum a player is allowed to make is 20 per cent of the cap, and we're getting ever closer to someone earning just that. On Friday, Cale Makar signed an eight-year extension with Colorado that comes with a $20.4 million AAV, or $400,000 lower than the maximum. When his contract begins next season, it projects to account for 17.97 per cent of the cap, per PuckPedia.

An early look at this year's UFA class

As you probably know, most of the high-end players who would have been eligible to hit unrestricted free agency in July 2026 instead re-signed and never made it to market. While the rising cap has brought rising salaries, it's also provided cap relief around the league. There are only six teams within $1 million of the upper limit right now, where at the peak of the flat cap over half the league was bumping against the ceiling or in LTIR.

It's quite possible this year's UFA class also dries up with re-signings, but what's interesting about these pending UFAs is that the new CBA rules outlined earlier on term limits means they are the last players who can chase eight years, and the changing salary expectations and cap-percentage comparables mean some of these players hold an awful lot of leverage.

So before we get going — and before any more of them re-sign ahead of camp — here's a reminder of the top pending UFAs:

Quinn Hughes, Minnesota ($7.85 million AAV): All the buzz has been about Hughes re-signing for a short term with Minnesota, but the league's contract landscape is changing some calculations. With a $17-million player already on the roster, can the Wild afford someone else making more? Minnesota is $1.152 million under the cap, while next year's upper limit is projected to rise to $113.5 million — a nearly $10 million increase on 2026-27's $104 million cap. It's possible Hughes takes up all of that extra room. Makar instantly becomes a comparable.

Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay ($9.5 million AAV): A potentially complicated contract, Kucherov is the reigning Hart Trophy winner coming off a 130-point season, but he'll also be 34 years old by the time his next contract begins. The Lightning do have a tax advantage on some other cities that may help keep his AAV down, as it has for others. But... his current contract was signed in 2018 after his first 100-point season, and he's eclipsed that total five times since.

Jason Robertson, Dallas ($12 million AAV): After many trade rumours and a rejection of signing in Seattle for around $15 million, Robertson's summer as an RFA ended with him re-upping for just one year in Dallas at $12 million. That will now walk him to his first UFA year at 27, but the one-year deal also makes him ineligible to sign an extension until Jan. 1. Is this situation between team and player still salvageable?

Alex DeBrincat, Detroit ($7.875 million AAV): The Dylan Larkin trade request remains unresolved, and with Steve Yzerman out of a GM's chair that has yet to be filled, it's hard to say how it will be. Between the captain's unhappiness and an Atlantic Division without any weak teams, the Red Wings might be in tough to snap their playoff drought. Larkin isn't the only key player to figure out plans for, either. DeBrincat, a 41-goal scorer last season, will see his contract expire next July, after which he could become a UFA.

Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh ($8.7 million AAV): The odds are he will stay in Pittsburgh and finish his career there, but if they go back to missing the playoffs, Evgeni Malkin retires and Erik Karlsson moves on... maybe, just maybe, Crosby will consider other options?

Erik Karlsson, Pittsburgh ($11.5 million AAV): After somewhat of a resurgent 66-point season and a playoff appearance with the Penguins, Karlsson will be 37 when his next contract kicks in for the 2027-28 season. Depending on what happens with Hughes, Karlsson could stand to be the most skilled blue liner available.