How will the NHL’s rising salary cap IMPACT the Chicago Blackhawks in 2026 Free Agency?

How will the NHL’s rising salary cap IMPACT the Chicago Blackhawks in 2026 Free Agency?

Where is everyone? There’s no one left. It’s not totally true, Mario. Not yet, at least. Not yet. But with the rising cap, a lot of these guys that we have been eyeing, and this happened last year, too, or Mitch Martner never reached free agency and uh Brock Ber never reached free agency. Leon Drytle a couple years ago, never reached. Yeah. The only guys that reached were Nikolai Eers and who there’s somebody else I’m missing that reached last year. That was really it though. Like Eers was the big was the big fish. Yeah. And that was it. And now and and big fish in the sense of like B tier the biggest fish admire in the fish section. Yes. Exactly. Uh nothing against him but he’s just not that level of a superstar. So over the last week, Carell Capriovv, Conor McDavid, Jacko, and Kyle Kyle Connor. Your four top unrestricted free agent options for next summer have already signed. Yep. So now you’re looking at the second tier names are Tammy Paneran, Alex Tuck, Alex Ovuchetkin, who will either continue playing for the Caps or retire. Martin Nas, Adrien Kempe, Nick Schmaltz, Patrick Kane, Anders Lee, Matt Zucarella, Patrick Line. Yeah. None of these guys to me are huge needle movers. Would they all help? Yeah, they would help. Yeah. I mean, I I think what we’re seeing, what we saw last uh off season where everybody stayed essentially, and even Brock Besser, who technically hit free agency, hit it, but went back to, you know, Vancouver. Um, we we heard all leading up to last last off seasonason. It was going to be the free agency class of Dry Cidle and Rantin and Ike uh not Eel Marner and all these guys and was just like, “Wow, Blackhawks could be in on those guys and that would be a real big accelerator and they have all this cap space they can spend.” The caveat is yeah so does everybody else with the rising cap everyone else has these same uh well not same amount but everyone else is in the same boat where there’s more money to work with than ever before the last handful of years even before you know co hit and then you hit the flat cap it was really only going up 1 to two million per year like it wasn’t it wasn’t crazy significant jumps and now we’re talking about going from you know 88 to 95 and a half this year. The projection when they first came out with like, hey, salary caps projections and salary caps are going up and everything, the first projection for the 26 27 season was 104 million. Now, just this week, Elliot Friedman is saying that’s going to be about probably 107. And so you’re adding for if you’re maxed out on this con this year, you’re up at the cap. Yeah. Let’s say you’re the Edmonton Oilers. Theoretically next year you could sign our Tummy Panera into a $12 million deal or whatever it would be if you sign no one else. Yeah. Right. And like so it’s so we’re gonna serve our whole audience here. Man, Kyle Davidson is really smart for not giving away these draft picks, these first round draft picks. Yeah. and knowing that that’s how he’s going to rebuild this team slash he should be fired for an idiot signing for not see not foreseeing the fact that no free agents would be available. They’re not going to be able to find their Marian Hosa. That seems to be the reality here is they’re not going to be able to swipe that massive generational, you know, culture changing free agent like they would have back in the dynasty days or even over the last few years. So now it now the development really becomes crucial. Yeah. And you know we talk about what’s the right thing to do with Kchinsky and Moore and and uh you know Levino and all these young players that now becomes way more important because if you screw one of these up if one of these top draft picks top 10 top 15 draft picks flops you can’t really go pay your way out of it and bring somebody in. Now, again, I’m not saying like if the Hawks were to bring in Andrew Lee next year or give Patrick Kane a one-year deal to retire with the Hawks, like a farewell tour, that’s going to make the team better. It’s just really hard right now to look ahead two, three, four years and say, “Okay, at this time this guy’s going to hit free agency and the Hawks will be poised to scoop him up.” Yeah. The only person that might is if in three years Conor McDavid still has not won in Edmonton and is looking for a free agent destination of a place where he thinks he can win in three years that could be here if everything pans out correctly. Yeah, it could be. But you cannot under any circumstance plan on that happening. No, I think I think teams will be smart to obviously uh keep their books open for big free agents, but yeah, I think we’re we’re evolving in the NHL to a spot where buying your way out of being bad isn’t isn’t possible. Uh because each team can buy their their own players to to stick around. Think about this, you know, the this environment that we’re in now in in the NHL where the salary cap is growing and all that stuff. Think about if that had happened in the summer of 2010 and that Blackhawks team that won this the first of the three modern Stanley Cups didn’t have to be split up because they just ran out of money for everybody. That’s not happening anymore. Look at what the Florida Panthers went through last year. We were talking about, you know, they brought in uh Seth Jones while Aaron Eblad was on an expiring contract and you were like, well, Ekblad’s hitting the market. You had Sam Bennett going on a tear and and winning the KM Smite. You’re like, wow, he’s going to cash in on free agency. Brad Marshian was just like, “Wow, he’s going to take a a one-year run, you know, maybe one last run at the cup with the Panthers.” And then boom, boom, boom, all three of those guys signed for significant money. But all but the uh Panthers were able to make it work. And you have you you’re just going to have more and more of these teams that are contenders now that aren’t going to be punished as teams were back in the back in the day when the salary cap wasn’t going up as much year-over-year. And you still had to deal with teams right up against the cap. Teams aren’t going to be punished as much as they used to be for being good. Those Hawks teams, it was just like, you’re really good, but you’re not going to be able to keep all these guys together because you can’t pay everybody. You drafted too well. and and now now you teams are going to be able to pay everybody. And if guys do go to free agency, numbers and contracts might get really stupid high because teams are going to be like, “This is our chance. These guys rarely ever hit the market. This is going to be our chance. Yeah, this, you know, if we get to, you know, summer of 2026 and Art Timmy Paneran is the only big fish out there, teams are going to throw stupid money at him. But I think that’s just going to become the norm. And and and with these contracts that are going out there, we it’s there’s a big discussion that needs to be had in the NHL of like player values and what what was yesterday’s price is not today’s price kind of thing. It’s just like you’re talking about, you know, Jackson Lome signed his his extension with the with the Ducks and you were like initial reaction. You’re like, you’re giving this guy who I just learned of his existence 5 minutes ago that much money. Well, and that was a reaction of Nazar too from a lot of people, right? A lot of people were like, Frank Nazar’s played 50 games. Why are you giving him 6 million and change? But now, now you look at it, by next year, Frank Nasar’s $6 million contract is like a $4 million contract. Like, it’s all changing. The the conversation with Lane Hudson, $9 million. You’re like, he’s played one year, but yeah, but Lane Hudson, like you project out what he could be, 9 million’s like 7 million. Like, it it’s it’s going to change yearover year and next year 9 million will be 5 million, right? It’s going to keep going down. It’s going to keep keep evolving. And I think we’re going to we’re going to go through a an evolution of how teams are going to use the cap because you see some guys taking significant cuts like Conor McDavid to say, “Hey, use this money to get us over the hump because we’ve been really close.” Then you have guys like Caril Capriov going, “No, no, no, no, no. I want all the money. All the money. I I want what what I’m what I’m owed.” And teams are going to have to figure out a way on how to navigate that. And I think what’s nice for the Blackhawks and Kyle Davidson so far is most of those contracts or basically all those contracts he’s given out to those in-house guys, they all seem to kind of be like on the Oh, I’m surprised it was that number higher number that might work out in his favor. All right, before we wrap up, we got about a minute left. Uh Paneran, Tuck, Ovuchkin, Nas, Kempy, Schmaltz, Kane, Lee, Zukarella, L. Which of those two names, give me two of those names that would excite you the most for the Blackhawks? See, and the thing is I don’t even know how many of them actually realistic because Kemp is talking about extensions. Kempy wants 10 million. Yeah. Which I I don’t want to give him that. Um, Nous. But the nature thing scares me though cuz he seems to not be happy anyway. Yeah. I don’t think I want want to bring that in. And I think in the black blackhawk sense, like I don’t know how many free agent big money free agents they want to go with because starting to get to a point where you’ve built so much that your in-house talent is going to take up so much room that you’re it’s like, well, if all these guys end up hitting or close to hitting their ceilings, what big free agent do you need to spend money on? Because if you think Fondell’s a game changer, if Baddard becomes the generational superstar in the NHL that he is, if Frank Nazar tops out, if you know, of all these guys start getting to that point, you’re just like, well, you don’t need to blow the bag on free agency. You might just need to bit and piece your way through it and just make sure you developing correctly. Yeah. the and go, you know, just like the Theo Epstein was always able to find like the the little like the market change before it happened, like, oh, here’s a trend that no one’s really noticed yet. The Hawks have to figure out what that is. I think it’s and corner it. I think it’s developing your own guys and and having as robust of a prospect pool as possible because trying to go elsewhere to fill your roster and and and build a contender is it’s changing. Okay.

Jack Eichel, Connor McDavid, Kirill Kaprizov and Kyle Connor has signed contract extensions with their respective teams, and it could have major ripple effects across the NHL — including for the Chicago Blackhawks. With 2026 free agency shaping up to be a pivotal moment for Chicago’s rebuild, how does the changing face of free agency impact what GM Kyle Davidson can do? From Connor Bedard’s future cap hit to potential big-name targets, the CHGO Blackhawks crew — Jay Zawaski and Mario Tirabassi — break down every angle.

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