NHL, players back in business
Both sides ratify the Return to Play protocols and agree on a CBA extension.
The NHL and the NHL Players’ Assn. on Friday ratified the terms of their Return to Play plan and also approved a memorandum of understanding to extend their collective bargaining agreement though the 2025-26 season, decisions that clear the way for training camps to open next week and for the season to resume Aug. 1 under an atmosphere of cooperation and labor peace.
The NHL paused its season March 12 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the league and the union have negotiated elaborate protocols designed to safeguard the health of players, coaches and team staffers while permitting teams to complete the season and award the Stanley Cup.
The revamped playoffs will feature 24 teams — 12 from the Eastern Conference and 12 from the Western (not the Kings or Ducks) — and will place those teams in protective bubbles in Toronto and Edmonton, respectively. The top four teams in each conference will play round-robin games for seeding; the other teams in each conference will meet in a best-of-five qualifying round. All rounds after that will be best-of-seven. No fans will be in the arenas.
The conference finals and Stanley Cup Final will be played in Edmonton’s Rogers Place. The Final could end as late as Oct. 4, and the start to the 2020-21 season will be pushed to December.
Players who chose to opt out of competition for health reasons can do so by Monday. Camps will run until July 26, when teams will travel to their assigned hub.
The terms of the collective bargaining agreement address the revenue losses the NHL has sustained because of the pandemic. The salary cap will remain at $81.5 million next season, and players will defer 10% of their salaries. They will be repaid when the league’s revenues revive.
A noteworthy element in the collective bargaining agreement is a commitment from the NHL and the NHLPA to allow players to represent their homelands in the 2022 and 2026 Winter Olympics if they can reach an agreement with the International Ice Hockey Federation and/or the International Olympic Committee.
Players’ payment to escrow will be capped at 20% next season and would decline according to future levels of hockey-related revenues. As far as scheduling, the league and the union agreed to continue discussing simplified travel by scheduling backto-back road games in the same city when feasible.
In a news release issued by the league and the union, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman called the agreements significant and described them as “the foundation for the continued longterm growth of our League.”
Bettman, NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly and NHLPA special assistant to the executive director Mathieu Schneider are scheduled to take part in a media availability via Zoom on Saturday. It will be streamed live on nhl.com and the league’s Facebook page.
Fehr thanked the members of the negotiating and Return to Play committees and the union’s executive board.
“This agreement is a meaningful step forward for the players and owners, and for our game, in a difficult and uncertain time,” Fehr said.
A schedule is still being completed for TV coverage of the round-robin and qualifying games, a process complicated by the necessity of playing multiple games each day.
Start times for qualifying round games, which start Aug. 2, in Toronto will be at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Pacific time. Start times for qualifying round games in Edmonton will be 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Pacific time but might fluctuate depending on the end of previous games. The playoffs begin Aug. 10.