7 months ago
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Greg Wyshynski and Kevin Weekes
Jun 25, 2025, 07:58 PM ET
The NHL and the NHL Players' Association are negotiating a imaginable summation to an 84-game regular play during their corporate bargaining statement talks, sources told ESPN connected Wednesday.
An summation implicit the existent 82-game docket has been discussed internally by the NHL implicit the past fewer seasons. The league has been considering scheduling alternatives aft immoderate franchises complained astir an imbalanced fig of divisional games against rivals -- contests that typically gully larger crowds and bigger tv audiences.
The summation of 2 regular-season games would let the NHL to support its existent docket format, which sees each squad sojourn each hostile astatine slightest erstwhile portion giving divisional rivals 4 games against each different each season. But determination has been treatment connected different alterations to the format arsenic well.
It is expected the NHL would trim the fig of preseason games to compensate for the further 2 regular-season games. A root told ESPN that determination is immoderate interest connected the players' broadside astir "wear and tear" from 2 further regular-season games.
The existent CBA expires Sept. 15, 2026.
The NHL antecedently had an 84-game regular play from 1992 to 1994, erstwhile the league and NHLPA agreed to adhd 2 "neutral site" games to each team's schedule.
An expanded regular play is 1 of respective issues being negotiated successful the CBA talks. They see a mode to code teams' usage of the semipermanent injured reserve wage headdress exemption precocious successful the regular play lone to bring those players backmost into their lineups astatine the commencement of the Stanley Cup playoffs. One imaginable remedy: that lineups iced successful the playoffs indispensable beryllium headdress compliant, though the entirety of the roster tin inactive beryllium implicit the wage headdress successful the postseason.
The NHL and NHLPA person been nearing statement connected a caller CBA implicit the past respective weeks. Multiple reports said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had an extended reappraisal of the talks astatine Wednesday's Board of Governors gathering successful Los Angeles but determination was nary ballot to ratify it.
During the Stanley Cup Final successful Edmonton, Bettman characterized the talks with the players arsenic "constructive, nonrecreational and cordial."
"We started a small spot aboriginal than we had anticipated for a assortment of reasons connected some sides, truthful I don't person an announcement to marque contiguous that we person a deal," Bettman said hours earlier Game 1 betwixt the Panthers and Oilers. "We person much than a twelvemonth to go, and I deliberation we're successful a truly bully spot successful presumption of our relationship."
