NHL Players appear to be preparing for another lockout

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Josh tupper
August 27, 2024 (9:22 PM)

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NHL Players appear to be preparing for another lockout as they beginning to structure their contracts to protect themselves.

The NHL has had labour peace since the shortened 2012/13 season. The league was able to work with the Players Association through the COVID shutdown and keep the league running through the most difficult of times. However, the current collective agreement is set to expire after the 2026 season.

While the NBA, MLB and NFL have seen immediate resurgences after their COVID seasons, the NHL has not seen the same bounce back. Instead, while other league's salary caps have exploded the NHL has remained mostly flat. Now with new head of the NHLPA, Marty Walsh, the players are expected to seek a bigger portion of revenues.

In preparation of this, NHL player are taking control of their futures with a lockout as a possibility. Travis Yost of TSN dove into the numbers surrounding things and highlighted a huge increase in players opting for signing bonuses in the lockout season.

To illustrate this, consider just the contracts signed since the beginning of the calendar year. Notably, the multi-year contracts with term extending into the 2026-27 regular season have a sharp rise in signing bonus activity at the moment the league's contract expires.

By doing this players will help remove leverage the owners have over them and can potentially alleviate some control. Another lockout would be extremely detrimental to the league as a whole and should be the motivation the owners use to keep things amicable. At the very least though, players are protecting their biggest investments, themselves.