NHL, NHLPA agree on 4-year extension to CBA

LOS ANGELES -- There will be at least five more years of labor peace in the NHL.

"Completely refreshing," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said Friday.

Bettman was speaking at a press conference where it was announced the NHL and NHL Players' Association have agreed to a four-year extension of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, which will carry through the 2029-30 season.

The announcement of an agreement in principle pending ratification on both sides was made by Bettman, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly, NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh and NHLPA assistant executive director Ron Hainsey hours ahead of the start of the 2025 Upper Deck NHL Draft at L.A. Live's Peacock Theater (7 p.m. ET; ESPN, ESPN+, SN, TVAS).

The current CBA, which was signed in 2013 and extended in 2020, expires Sept. 15, 2026. The extension would begin the following day and go through Sept. 15, 2030.

"On all aspects of the business, whether it's how you construct your team and looking at salary caps, players anticipating what types of contracts they can negotiate, what we do with our business partners whether it's media or sponsors or advertisers, it gives everybody a sense of stability, a sense of certainty, a sense of optimism that everything is going well and will continue to fuel the growth that we've seen," Bettman said. "It's all good."

Walsh said extending the CBA more than 14 months before the expiry of the current agreement was important to the NHL and NHLPA to continue the growth they have achieved together in the past several years.

"When I first started this job two and a half years ago we talked about collective bargaining," Walsh said. "One of the first meetings Gary and myself had was talking about is there a way we can look at the Collective Bargaining Agreement because of the momentum in hockey. We talked about 4 Nations. We talked about the Olympics. We talked about the World Cup and all the great things that are happening in the sport. We thought it would be good to get this conversation moving.

"As Gary framed it and it's right, very good meetings. Didn't agree on everything, but no major blowouts in the room. We just talked about keeping in front of us, moving forward."

Daly said the League will provide information about the CBA to its Board of Governors on Friday and will be looking for a response "within the reasonably near future." A formal vote will follow.

"We did have the benefit, and Bill did an extraordinary job at the Board meeting on Wednesday of walking the Board through in pretty good detail, but not every I and every T that you'll see in the document," Bettman said.

Walsh said the NHLPA will present the agreement to its membership in the next week to provide enough time to answer any questions the players may have before it goes to a formal vote.

"We went back and forth, very open dialogue, and even the complicated issues that might have come up were given complete thought on both sides and we were able to get to some good resolutions here," Walsh said. "Happy with the process and hopefully the players will be happy with the outcome."

Bettman and Walsh stressed that they could not go into detail about items included in the new CBA because it is subject to ratification by both sets of boards and not everyone had all the pertinent information yet.

However, the new CBA does not include any substantial changes to the financial structure the League has been operating with since 2013, when the NHL and NHLPA agreed to a 50-50 split of Hockey Related Revenue, with the NHL salary cap determined by that revenue split.

"We believe, at least from a League standpoint and I think the Players' Association may agree as well, we have extraordinary competitive balance and that's because that underlies how we're structured enables all of our clubs to be able to compete," Bettman said.

Said Hainsey, "I can say that we've had a salary cap in this league for 20 years. That's just the reality of it, whether players like that or not. So going into this process maybe it was a little bit different of a mindset at the beginning of where we would end up at the end."

The new deal will reportedly see the NHL regular season increase to 84 games per team (two more) while the preseason schedule is reduced to four from six per team.

According to several media reports, another significant change from the current CBA will see the maximum length of contracts reduced by one season, so a player re-signing with his current team will be able to sign for up to seven years, while players signing with a new team as a free agent on or after July 1 can sign for up to six.

"I think it's fair to say that we identified pretty early on the things that were important to each of us and I think we respected that," Bettman said.

The commissioner praised the relationship he has with Walsh and the League now has with the NHLPA as a significant reason for why they were able to come to this agreement at a time that benefits the business and allows for momentum to continue.

"Marty and what he's brought to the Players' Association and to our relationship has been incredibly positive for the game, for the players and for the business of the game," Bettman said. "We're thrilled with this relationship now. Again, we don't always agree on everything, but we have the kind of relationship where we can talk to each other sensibly, civilly, professionally to make sure we understand each other, what our needs are and how to address them. I'm not surprised based on the relationship we've built over the last couple of years that we were able to do this, but I think it bodes extraordinarily well for the game going forward."

Forward John Tavares, who on Friday signed a four-year contract to stay with the Toronto Maple Leafs, said the CBA news is “great for the game.”

“It's great, I think, for the League, for us as players to continue the partnership and the growth. Obviously, there's been tremendous growth, and what's ahead is spectacular on many fronts. The predictability of things goes a long way, I think, for everyone in the sport. It's great to have that partnership and how collaborative it's been, which has been very different from 2012.

“It's great to see and happy that the growth of the game and the sport and the business side of it is all kind of in sync and in synergy and we're able to kind of continue to build off the many great things over the last few years, the level the sports at, the type of players that we have, the way international hockey's going and obviously the Stanley Cup Playoffs has been never better. Great for the future of the game."