NHL GMs frustrated by new salary cap rules at trade deadline - ESPN

Some NHL teams told ESPN that they're frustrated by the impact that the league's expedited salary cap rules have had ahead of Friday's trade deadline.

The new Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NHL and the NHLPA, which was announced in July, begins Sept. 16. The league, however, moved up a handful of new rules governing the salary cap to the 2025-26 season and only briefed its general managers about those changes last September.

«Teams made plans and then, in September, the league changes the rules. It's bush league,» one NHL team executive told ESPN. «All of a sudden, if you're one of these teams that's been kind of planning a certain way, they just changed the rules on you.»

One NHL player agent said the expedited rules should have been announced when the new CBA was finalized.

«Everybody would've preferred the new rules to kick in on July 1 if they were going to be applied to this season. Instead, they were announced right before the start of the regular season and it blindsided a lot of people,» the agent told ESPN.

Messages to the NHL and the NHLPA were not returned.

The biggest rule changes targeted playoff teams that created postseason lineups that were over the regular-season salary cap. For example, a team that places a high-salaried player on long-term injured reserve (LTIR) could utilize his open salary cap space to acquire new players. But if that injured player returns when the playoffs start — something that's become commonplace in the NHL for some franchises — that team could have a lineup that exceeds the regular-season salary cap with no repercussions.

To combat that trend, the new CBA created a de facto «playoff salary cap,» where teams must submit a 20-player gameday lineup whose «averaged