It’s safe to say all 31 National Hockey League clubs were caught off-guard in June when the salary cap rose much less than was originally anticipated. Rather than operating with a cap ceiling in the vicinity of $83-84 million, the 2019-20 cap was set at $81.5 million – the smallest year-over-year increase since the cap’s inception following the 2004-05 lockout.
However, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest the low salary cap will be inflicting short term pain on NHL teams and players for longer term gain.
Much ado about escrow
If you’ve followed the ongoing Collective Bargaining Agreement talks between the league and the players, you’ve probably heard far too much about escrow.