The NHL and NHL Players Association announced on Tuesday that the salary cap for the 2015-16 season will be $71.4 million.
The salary cap increases by $2.1 million from this past season when the salary cap was $69 million. The cap floor, which is the minimum that an NHL team must spend, will be $52.8 million, according to the Associated Press. The NHLPA used its five percent escalator clause to increase the salary cap. The cap is where NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had projected it to be.
“We obviously have to have a discussion with the players’ association as we’ve said all along,” Bettman said before the Stanley Cup Finals. “If we use the full five percent (escalator), our preliminary calculations is we’ll be somewhere over $71-(million). But the cap is somewhere in the $70-71-(million) range we believe.”
The $71.4 cap will help the Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks, and the Los Angeles Kings who are close to the cap. There are six teams, the Blackhawks, Bruins, Kings, Philadelphia Flyers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Montreal Canadiens, and Vancouver Canucks, that have more than $64 million in cap space currently, according to CBS Sports. Currently there are three teams, the Flyers, Lightning, and Canadiens, who are within $5 million of the new cap, and nine teams are currently under the cap floor, Yahoo Sports notes.
During the offseason teams are allowed to be ten percent over the salary cap. However they must be cap compliant by the start of the season.