Rumor: NHL's financial losses mean disaster for teams in salary cap hell.

At this point everyone is well aware of the fact that some of the businesses that have been hardest hit by the ongoing pandemic have been professional sports leagues from around the world. The inability to have fans in the building, and by extension the ability to sell tickets to those fans, has caused these leagues to suffer losses in the billions of dollars and unfortunately the National Hockey League has been no exception.

The NHL however operates under a hard salary cap and as a result the impact of that financial loss may be felt more directly by fans of certain teams than in any other sport, specifically teams that spend all the way to the salary cap limit. That impact has already been felt in some cases with teams forced to make major adjustments to their future plans due to the salary cap remaining flat this season and recently one NHL insider has revealed that this is a problem that could continue for many years to come due to just how bad the loss of revenue has been for the league.

Speaking on his weekly 31 Thoughts podcast, insider Elliotte Friedman revealed that some of his sources have indicated that it could be a full 5 years before we see the league's cap rise again. 

"You know, I have to tell you too Jeff. I had someone say to me this week that based on what they're hearing revenues are and what the money that's going to be owed from the players to the league, they are not expecting the cap to go up for 5 years," said Friedman on his most recent podcast.

It's not hard to see how that could have serious ramifications for teams that have several players signed to long term deals with big money attached to them, especially in the case of teams with aging players signed to those expensive contracts. Teams like the Edmonton Oilers, who have both captain Connor McDavid and forward Leon Draisaitl earning huge salaries, will have to navigate the cap carefully moving forward but teams like the Minnesota Wild who were no doubt counting on the salary cap going up to help manage the contracts of declining assets like forward Zach Parise will have it even worse. 

Those are far from the only examples, teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning, Las Vegas Golden Knights and more will no doubt have tough decisions to make in the future if Friedman's sources are indeed correct. On the other side of the coin however this could prove to be a huge advantage for budget teams, or even the incoming Seattle Kraken, who will now see their available cap space turn into an incredibly valuable asset moving forward.