Will Shorter Contract Terms Be A Point Of Contention In The NHL's Next Labor Deal?

In 2012, when the NHL and NHL Players’ Association were hashing out a new collective bargaining agreement, one of the biggest points of contention was the issue of players' contract lengths. Team owners were seeking maximum contract lengths of five years, but ultimately, the players negotiated a maximum contract length of seven years for players joining a new team, and eight years for players re-signing with their current team.

From the league’s perspective, shorter contract lengths would address teams’ fears that a player's value depreciates significantly when they enter their thirties. And there was at least one study that backed up that perspective – a British Columbia study that suggested NHL forwards hit their peak at age 28, and defensemen peaked at age 29. So you could see why the league would want to limit contract terms as much as the players would allow.

Related: NHL players hit their peak by 29. How wise is the eight-year contract?

Under the current CBA terms that often don’t grant players unrestricted free agency until between ages 25 and 27, a five-year max contract would take those players into their early thirties. But considering players were already giving up massive contract terms in the 2012 negotiations – think of Rick DiPietro’s infamous 15-year deal, or Ilya Kovalchuk’s similarly-stunning 17-year pact – the idea of a five-year maximum term was not a welcome one from the PA’s point of view.

That said, given the NHL’s recent comments on term length, we don’t expect the league to draw a line in the sand on that issue and insist on shorter contract lengths, even if term lengths may still be a point of contention for the owners. Speaking to The Athletic recently, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed term length would be a topic of conversation for the league, although he soft-pedalled it in terms of inflammatory rhetoric or vague threats that it will be the NHL’s way or no way on that particular topic.

“(Term lengths are) an item (GMs have) asked us to focus on,” Daly said. “It wasn’t any more specific than (GMs) saying if we could achieve bargaining shorter contract limits, we should put that on our (negotiating) list.”

Daly added that term lengths aren’t the No. 1 issue for the league in negotiations for a new deal to take the place of the current CBA that’s in place until September of 2026.

“It’s a matter of potentially fixing things we need to fix on our side – or want to fix – and (the players) doing the same thing on their side,” Daly said, sounding like someone who isn’t seeking a showdown in the next labor negotiations. “So, I don’t see that (revisiting contract term limits) as being necessarily an issue that’s going to be on the top of our list in negotiation. It’ll be on a list. I can’t tell you how long that list is.”

From the PA’s point of view, contract term length will be a problem if the league tries taking a harder line on the issue. Players battled vigorously to win that eight-year maximum term, and unless the league is prepared to trade that issue for a more beneficial labor deal element in another area, the union is going to hang hard to keep what they’ve already got. And from this writer’s perspective, we think players shouldn’t have to bail out owners and GMs who don’t have proper discipline when it comes to handing out bloated contract extensions.

To wit: many long-term deals have turned out to be high-value bargains, including Quinn Hughes’ current contract with Vancouver (average annual value of $7.85 million) and Clayton Keller’s deal with Utah (average annual value of $7.15 million). Keller’s contract was for eight years, and Hughes’ contract was for six years, so clearly, there’s room to negotiate in terms of the length of a contract under the current labor deal. No one has a gun to GMs’ heads forcing them to give players seven-or-eight-year contracts. And if GMs do hand out lengthy deals that don’t work out, players as a group shouldn’t be forced to lose their opportunities in terms of contract length in the next CBA.

When this writer spoke to NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh earlier this month, we didn’t get any sense the union and the owners were headed toward another labor clash. And many people expect a new CBA to come without a labor stoppage. But that likely means the status quo will be maintained for contract term length. And really, so long as owners are getting a 50/50 split of hockey-related revenues, the way owners and players split up their money isn’t going to be a red-line deal-breaker on a new CBA.

Related: Q&A: NHLPA Exec Marty Walsh On NHL Expansion, CBA Plans And More, Part 1

So don’t expect contract lengths to shorten in the next labor deal. The league and the PA seem to be in a positive mindset about a new CBA, and though there will likely be tweaks to the next CBA, contract term probably won’t be one of them.

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