OTTAWA, CANADA - APRIL 25: Drake Batherson #19 of the Ottawa Senators controls the puck against the Carolina Hurricanes in Game Four of the First Round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Canadian Tire Centre on April 25, 2026 in Ottawa, Canada. (Photo by Tim Austen/Freestyle Photo/Getty Images)
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The clock is ticking toward an unusual deadline in the NHL, and teams with players relevant to it are rushing to beat the final horn.
The new collective bargaining agreement goes into effect at midnight, at which time a seven-year contract will be the longest a player can re-sign with his own team — and six years in free agency. The final eight-year deals are getting done Tuesday.
Ryan Leonard will tie Alex Tuch as the Capitals’ highest-paid player
Washington locked up Ryan Leonard for $84 million starting with the 2027-28 season. Making an average of $10.5 million a year through 2035, he will match new Capitals teammate Alex Tuch, who also got eight years in a sign-and-trade with Buffalo, for the highest-paid player on the team when Leonard’s new deal kicks in.
“Ryan is a young and talented player who is still years away from entering his prime, and we believe he has tremendous potential to continue growing into an important player for our organization,” general manager Chris Patrick said in announcing Leonard’s contract. “While reaching his full potential will take time, we have been impressed with his work ethic and the way he continues to develop his game. We are confident in Ryan’s ability to continue improving as a hockey player, and we believe this agreement provides him with the opportunity to grow and develop within our organization, while giving us the ability to keep a talented young player in our lineup for years to come.”
Leonard, a 21-year-old winger, is going into just his second full NHL season after breaking in during the spring of 2025. This contract cements his place as part of the Capitals’ young, post-Alex Ovechkin core, which is expected to also include brothers Ilya and Aliaksei Protas.
Drake Batherson signs the richest deal in Senators history
Ottawa signed Drake Batherson for $86 million, which is the most lucrative contract in Senators history. The previous record was Tim Stützle’s eight-year, $66.8 million extension from September 2022.
Batherson will count $10.75 million against the salary cap starting in 2027, surpassing Stützle’s $8.35 million. He’ll be 29 at that point.
“He was drafted and developed by our organization and has shown a commitment to wanting to be in Ottawa long term,” GM Steve Staios said of Batherson. “We view him as a key part of our core group.”
Batherson has set career highs in scoring each of the past seven seasons, topping out at 71 last year. He is just the second player in league history to do that seven times in a row, joining Vic Stasiuk from 1953-54 to ’59-60 with Detroit.
Even with the cap going up, players want long-term security
Since the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association came to an agreement on this CBA in late June 2025, 33 players have signed an eight-year contract. Twelve of those have come in the past three months, including Colorado’s Cale Makar setting the record for the most money at $163.2 million.
After being flat or nearly flat coming out of the pandemic, the salary cap is the middle of a series of record increases, now that revenues have caught up and are skyrocketing. The cap went from $95.5 million last season to $104 million this season and will be $113.5 million in 2027-28, when most of these new contracts will go into effect.
Philadelphia signing Anaheim’s Leo Carlsson to an offer sheet in July that made him the highest-paid player in the sport at $18 million a year — which the Ducks matched to keep him — led to a spike in salaries this summer.
Vegas center Jack Eichel, who is now making $13.5 million on his long-term contract signed last October, said agent Pat Brisson told him about what was coming and they had talks with NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh and others at the union and decided to go the full eight years anyway.
“It’s an incredible deal for me and my family, and we’re super grateful for the organization and the city believing in us,” Eichel said last week. “There’s no signer’s remorse. Yeah, I’m a happy guy.”
Eichel led the Golden Knights to the Stanley Cup in 2023. He and fellow standouts such as Makar, Minnesota’s Kirill Kaprizov, and Florida teammates Sam Bennett and Aaron Ekblad are proven commodities.
Many of the young players getting eight-year deals this offseason are team gambles of varying degrees.
As recently as Monday, Buffalo signed 22-year-old center Noah Ostlund for $52.8 million, banking on his potential. Ostlund has played in just 71 games in the league thus far.
Pittsburgh signed Ville Koivunen for $32 million over eight years in August. He has 14 points in 42 career games.
