New York: The salary cap for the 2016-17 NHL season will be $73 million, up from $71.4 million. The league and NHL Players’ Association announced the cap number on Tuesday night, along with fixtures for the coming season.
The cap floor, or the minimum amount a team can spend, is $54 million. It was $52.8 million last season. Players elected to use their 5 perc ent escalator clause to help increase the salary cap $1.6 million.
The Canadian dollar was one reason why league revenues sagged, preventing a larger cap increase.
The draft begins on Friday in Buffalo, New York. Free agency opens July 1 at noon, though teams can talk to players beginning Saturday.
The 2016-17 NHL schedule is jam-packed, thanks to a late start because of the World Cup and a bye week for each team.
Condensed schedule
Back-to-backs and stretches of three games in four days are more common than ever because of the condensed schedule. The season runs from Wednesday, October 12, to Sunday, April 9, which at 180 days is almost a week shorter than 2015-16.
The Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins and Western Conference champion San Jose Sharks each have 15 back-to-back sets. Pittsburgh also plays four games in seven days around the three-day Christmas break.
Players on 29 of 30 teams will have at least five full days off from games and practices sometime in January or February. The Anaheim Ducks are off from February 28 to March 3.
The Players’ Association negotiated the bye week as part of its agreement to allow the All-Star Game to become a 3-on-3 tournament. Players who don’t attend typically go away for the All-Star break, but the bye week allows everyone some time off during the season.
Teams having back-to-back sets at home have been extremely rare in past seasons, but are part of the next season’s schedule because of time constraints.
