NHL’s Return to Play agreement is impressive, but CBA extension will be even more important

Once the coronavirus passes, the Blackhawks will be able to play uninterrupted hockey through 2026 with the NHL’s new CBA extension. | AP Photos

For the first time in history, the NHL has crafted the framework to play hockey through a global pandemic.

But for the first time since the 1990s, the NHL and its players have also successfully negotiated a long-term collective bargaining agreement extension.

And while “first time in three decades” might not compare to “first time ever” on the surface, the CBA extension was nonetheless the even more notable, impressive and important development to came out of the league’s Monday announcement.

No major North American professional league has been as frequently interrupted and seen its popularity and revenue growth as substantially slowed by lockouts as the NHL has, regardless of the many reasonable motivations behind each of the league’s strikes and lockouts.

Indeed, the expiration of a CBA has become essentially synonymous with a lockout. Since Bob Goodenow replaced the corrupt Alan Eagleson as NHLPA president in 1991-92, helping to elevate the association to roughly equal footing as the NHL’s Board of Governors (Gary Bettman became NHL commissioner a year later), the two parties have quite literally never agreed to a new one without a work stoppage.

The CBA expiration in 1995 led to a 103-day lockout, shortening the 1996 season to 48 games. The CBA expiration in 2004, despite a few short prior extensions, led to a 309-day lockout and the cancelation of the entire 2004-05 season. The CBA expiration in 2012 led to a 119-day lockout, shortening the 2013 season also to 48 games.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s tenure has become synonymous with lockouts, but that pattern has finally changed.

So to see a CBA that could’ve ended as soon as this coming September extended rather seamlessly through 2026, pending an official vote, is extremely encouraging for the future.

The NHL and NHLPA — to their credit — laid the groundwork for this cooperation last fall, when both sides elected not to opt out and force a 2020 expiration, instead letting the 2022 end date stand. Both sides said in statements at the time they were happy about the progress in negotiations.

It turns out those rosy statements weren’t just for show. With COVID-19 forcing both sides to spend huge portions of the past few months negotiating on the Return to Play plan, the opportunity proved ripe for an unprecedentedly smooth and ahead-of-schedule CBA extension, as well.

Even more impressively, the extension the two sides agreed upon isn’t just a continuation of the exact same rules, but instead includes numerous welcomed revisions.

The “new” CBA will reportedly guarantee Olympic participation by NHL players in 2022 and 2026. That’s a huge win for players and fans, and a surprise given Bettman’s emphatic rejection of the idea during an All-Star Weekend press conference this past winter.

It will also flatten salary cap inflation for the next several years (due to plummeting league revenue during the pandemic), increase the percentage of escrow held preemptively from players’ paychecks, make no-trade clauses travel with traded players who agreed to lift their clauses temporarily, limit the types of conditions for conditional draft picks included in trades and institute other small changes.

Both sides gained several key items on their wish lists, both sides effectively navigated the difficult logistical and financial implications of current times, and both sides did so in an incredibly timely manner.

In the past 30 years of NHL history, it’s been rare to see any one of those things occur, much less all three simultaneously.

So in August, when the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs begin (if all goes according to plan), it will be a testament to an effective spring and summer of NHL and NHLPA negotiations.

But when hockey continues steadily in 2022-23, 2023-24 and so forth, those same negotiations will pay even greater dividends.