The NHL is rapidly growing as they are having their best year yet with viewership. With the success they have been having, you’d expect for it to trickle down throughout the NHL and especially regarding the NHL Salary Cap.
Due to the stagnant salary cap, teams around the league this year find themselves in a peculiar spot as the March 3rd trade deadline approaches. What is usually a time of trade rumors flying around the NHL is not the case this year. It has been eerily quiet regarding trades while there has been an uptick in how busy teams have been on the waiver wire. Teams simply don’t have the cap space to work with, so they must circumvent the hard cap somehow.
The question remains why is this all of a sudden happening this year?
Eric Macramalla, who is a Sports Legal Analyst for Forbes and TSN, recently shared some worrying facts as to why that’s happening.
1) 12 NHL teams have no cap space
2) 17 teams have players on LTIR
3) 27 teams have less than $3M in cap space
4) Many teams want to make trades but can’t because of cap
5) Player movement is great for the game; generates interest
The numbers speak for themselves, as it is not just contenders that are up against the cap this season; it is a problem across the league. While the recent economic troubles due to the pandemic played a major role in where the cap is, what Gary Bettman is doing is just not working. If the NHL wants to continue to grow this league and the sport of hockey, they must address the cap space issue, which needs to be more than raising it $1 million.
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