7 NHL teams’ coaching staffs, including Oilers, are not receiving their full pay

At the height of the pandemic last year, many teams across the National Hockey League reduced payment for staff, including coaching staff. Everyone expected things to get back on track swiftly, however, it appears that times are still hard on some clubs in the league

Senior hockey writer Frank Sevaralli explained on last night’s Insider Trading on TSN that seven teams are still forced to cut salaries offered to their coaching staff even though the 2020-21 season is underway. Here is how he explained it: 

“By our count, there are seven NHL coaching staffs who are not receiving their full pay, even though the season has started. There’s some nuance to this. A team like the Edmonton Oilers, for instance, their three highest-paid coaches have agreed to a 25 per cent salary deferral for this season which will be eventually repaid once fans can get back in arenas and revenues can normalize a bit. Look, there’s a lot of unhappy coaches around the league - both coaches whose pay has been cut, and coaches at full pay - they’d like to see a level playing field.”

The good news for the NHL at the moment, is that Sevaralli reports that none of these seven coaching staffs have decided to make a formal complaint about the situation for the moment. 

“There has not been a formal complaint levied to the NHL to our knowledge and my guess is even if there was - it’s not something the NHL would want to dip their toe into the water on given the fact that these are individually negotiated employment contracts between coach and team. So we’ll see where this goes, but there’s certainly some unhappy coaches out there.”

Unfortunately for almost all teams across the league, fans attendance is non-existent or reduced by a high number, which means teams and their coaching staff will have to wait until it is possible to get more people in an arena to get more revenues and therefore get the money needed to receive their full pay. 

And there is no way to say when that will be…