Timely enough off the heels of the Labor Day holiday yesterday, the NHL’s new collective bargaining agreement, the labor rules agreed to by the NHL and the NHLPA, kicks in next week. The new agreement is in place through September 2030, marking the second time in a row the two sides have put a deal in place without missing any time. That’s no small matter, prior to the recent labor peace the NHL owners have locked out the players in 2004 and 2012 for significant periods that cost a total of 116 games.
These days, fortunately for all, there is more cooperation and perhaps about the best working relationship between the owners and players that we have seen in hockey. Those good feelings are no doubt influenced by business as a whole booming – revenue is way up so their is more money to be made by both sides. Further, ownership is absolutely swimming in vastly increased valuation and sale prices lately – look no further than the Penguins selling for $1.75 billion in 2026 after selling for $900 million just five years earlier.
The new CBA had some rules come on board early for last season – like LTIR tweaks and the playoff salary cap. Here are a few more interesting tweaks in place.
Training camps open Sept. 16 to coincide with the start of that new labor deal, and they’ll look much different than they did in the past. Experienced players will be put through only a 13-day camp, down from 20 days, and those with at least 100 NHL games on their resumes are now limited to two exhibition games. Each team will play only four exhibition games.
The preseason shrinks again, at least formally. Most players across the league are already skating informally with their teammates and have been for a week or more by this point. That amount of time in the pre-practice stage will now be longer than the formal, official 13-day training camp. Long gone are the days of multiple on-ice sessions per day. In fact, teams can also no longer implement fitness testing for unpopular tests on the exercise bike or the so-called dreaded bag skate or repetitive timed sprints.
The schedule has also been adjusted to drop two exhibition games and add on two more regular season games, boosting the season to 84-games. What the players earn in less games that don’t count are balanced out by adding more games that are meaningful, surely to the delight of season ticket holders everywhere.
Another new change is each team will employ a full-time emergency backup goalie, no longer being a single goalie per arena that could play for either team that might need it.
the new CBA includes a provision requiring each club to carry an emergency backup goaltender (EBUG) “prepared to enter all of its home and away games.”
The eligible goalies must meet a narrow band of requirements. They can’t have previously played an NHL game on a standard player contract, can’t have more than 80 games of professional experience, can’t have been a professional in the past three seasons, can’t have another contractual obligation that would preclude their ability to be an emergency goalie and can’t be on the reserve list of an NHL club.
The Penguins have designated 40-year old Mike Chiasson as their EBUG. Chiasson is no stranger to the organization, working as a ‘Goaltending Consultant’ and has been involved with the Pittsburgh Penguins elite youth program for the last decade.
We’ve been seeing this more, teams can use this extra goalie to help in practices (also serving to keep their EBUG somewhat sharp) to reduce the workload on their two NHL goalies – particularly if one might have a minor injury or illness. The EBUG will now be a pseudo-member of the team, in the shadows but always hanging around and ready just in case.
There’s a new rule for young players as well.
The new CBA gives teams more flexibility to develop their top prospects because it now allows players drafted in the first round out of the Canadian Hockey League to be assigned to the AHL for their 19-year-old season.
Previously, teenagers had to be sent back to their CHL teams and weren’t eligible for that kind of assignment.
Since the player has to be a first round pick, this wouldn’t have changed Harrison Brunicke’s situation last year. It doesn’t apply for the Penguins this year – Bill Zonnon turns 20 in early October and is eligible for the AHL this season as it is. Technically, it does mean Ben Kindel is now AHL eligible, though his play on ice has shown him to be of NHL quality.
This could be in the cards next year in 2027-28, as Liam Ruck will be eligible to play in the AHL. However, his twin brother Markus will not – since Markus was a second round choice. Marty Walsh, an NHLPA VP, is quoted in the article that the same NHL team can have multiple 19-year olds in the AHL provided they are first round picks (which also might shed some light on why the Pens wanted to trade back into the first round this summer).
The Ruck twins are committed to play at the University of North Dakota for 2027-28, plans are always subject to change so that could be something to monitor in 12 months to see if the team opts to split the paths of the twins or have both stay together at the collegiate level.
Things will be getting a little more informal with the outfits seen on social media for pre-game entrances by players.
The requirement that NHL players wear a suit and tie to games is officially a thing of the past.
In fact, the dress code was actually eliminated during the 2025-26 season as part of early transition dates agreed upon for the new CBA. However, the new standard wasn’t always observed properly last season.
“There was a little hiccup with the dress code,” Walsh said. “Some coaches and GMs and other players wanted players to wear suits and that’s not the rule anymore. Players can wear whatever they want.”
Small change for the outside, but nice for the players. It still seemed like most of the Penguins were dressed up going into the rink last year, that probably won’t change much. Ever the creature of habit, we wouldn’t expect Sidney Crosby to start rolling up in sweats just because he can. But if he wanted to, he could.
That’s about it for the major changes. One other adjustment going into effect is that players can only be signed for a maximum of seven years, starting next week. We already saw the Penguins take (what they hope will be) advantage of the eight year deal by signing Ville Koivunen last month. Unfortunately for them, Pittsburgh can’t extend Kindel until July 1, 2028 – and by that time it will only be for up to seven years if they want to employ the similar strategy to lock up a young player through his prime at what could be a team-friendly figure by the end of the deal.
As mentioned above, the LTIR rules from last year are in place. If an injured player is expected to return during the regular season or playoffs, team cap relief is restricted to the previous season’s league average salary ($3,973,228 for the 2026-27 season). If the player is deemed out for the balance, the team can get the full cap hit on LTIR but that player is ineligible to suit up again.
The Pens won’t have to worry about that any time soon, they have over $10 million in cap space and LTIR is only in place when a team runs out of space. Any injured player for them this season can and will be placed on the regular IR where the team carries their normal cap hit, given that they have plenty of room to call-up a replacement from the AHL that typically comes with a relatively modest cap hit.
