NHL salary cap expected to rise to $87.7 million; 2024 draft set for Las Vegas

The NHL’s brass convened in Seattle this week for the latest Board of Governor meetings and there was plenty of news regarding the future of the league.

The biggest news trickled out Monday night when the league told owners that the salary cap is expected to rise to $87.7 million next season. The move would represent a $4.2 million jump on the 2023-24 salary cap, which was $83.5 million. After remaining stagnant from 2019-22 amid the COVID-19 pandemic at $81.5 million, the league has gone up $1 million each year over the last two seasons.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said the league projects revenues of $6.2 billion this season.

We finally know officially where the 2024 NHL draft will be held: Las Vegas.

In what was one of the league’s worst-kept secrets, Bettman confirmed the NHL is finalizing a deal to hold a “dramatic” draft at the “Sphere” in Las Vegas on June 28 and 29. The Sphere, which opened in September and was built by the Madison Square Garden Company, markets itself as “a revolutionary venue to enjoy immersive shows, concerts, and events like never before.” Standing 366 feet high and 516 feet wide at its broadest point, the Sphere is the largest spherical building in the world at 875,000 square feet and can hold 18,600 people.

“It will be the first sporting event in the Sphere and I think it’ll be a pretty well-viewed event both in terms of the draft itself and the viral use of the Sphere inside and outside using the globe,” Bettman said. “We think it’ll be fun. We think it’ll be dramatic and compelling.”

The 2024 draft will likely be a last hurrah of sorts for the NHL, which recently voted to decentralize the draft. Teams had expressed interest in decentralizing the draft due to high costs to send employees, the quick turnaround to free agency, and the potential for information to be leaked with everybody in close proximity to one another. Once this is officially ratified, it would mean that all teams would stay home for the draft while prospects would still convene in one place.

Aside from the 2019 and 2020 drafts during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2025 is set to be the first decentralized draft since the event was first held in 1963.

The NHL and the International Olympic Committee have yet to sign a deal to have NHL players return to the Winter Olympics in 2026.

Those conversations reportedly remain ongoing, but in the meantime Bettman once again mentioned a four-team, “best-on-best” international tournament in 2025 feature the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Finland. The hope then would be an Olympics in 2026 and a World Cup of Hockey in 2028. Russia remains banned from all international hockey tournaments at the moment. Following the Olympics, the league wants to revive the World Cup of Hockey, which was last contested in 2016.

Bettman did express concern about the hockey facility for the Milan Olympics, which has yet to break ground on construction.

It seems as if things are trending toward NHL players returning to the Olympics in 2026, which the majority of the players are in favor of, although we have heard that before and been let down.

Bettman was also asked about the investigations into an alleged 2018 sexual assault involving members of the 2018 Canadian World Juniors team in London, Ontario.

“The process is continuing and we’re trying to bring it to a conclusion,” he said. “It’s complicated. It hasn’t been easy for a whole host of reasons, but we’re continuing to progress on the process.”

There have been few updates on the case and the potential ramifications and consequences, both legal and otherwise, from the findings from the various investigations over the last two years. Flyers goaltender Carter Hart was a member of that Canada team, as was current Lehigh Valley Phantoms defenseman Victor Mete.

When asked by The Inquirer in the past Hart, said he “was fully cooperating with the investigation.”