{"id":572327,"date":"2026-05-11T14:48:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T14:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/572327\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T14:48:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T14:48:19","slug":"analysis-easing-concerns-of-nhl-salary-cap-increase-and-its-impact-on-winnipeg-jets-winnipeg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/572327\/","title":{"rendered":"ANALYSIS: Easing concerns of NHL salary cap increase and its impact on Winnipeg Jets – Winnipeg"},"content":{"rendered":"

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With the NHL salary ceiling rising from US$95.5 million to $104 million next season, does that \u201chave to\u201d mean the Winnipeg Jets will no longer be a \u201ccap team\u201d? And for the next several seasons, might that even matter?<\/p>\n

The response to the question of Jets ownership having the capacity to shell out more than CAD$140 million for 2026-27 would probably be no.<\/p>\n

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And with the cap expected to continue to rise in future seasons \u2014 and not by \u201cinsignificant\u201d amounts, either \u2014 there\u2019s a strong likelihood Winnipeg would operate closer to the midpoint than the max for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s because Josh Morrissey is the only player on the current roster looking at eight figures for his next contract.<\/p>\n

Cole Perfetti and Isak Rozen this summer, Morgan Barron and Brad Lambert next year. Dylan Samberg in the 2028 off-season. Those five players combined will probably not command deals in excess of US$25 million annually.<\/p>\n

And if the Jets do make the difficult decision to move on from any or all of their core members over the next season or two, they might be hard-pressed just to stay above the floor. That would depend on the quality of players added to the mix via trade or draft between now and then.<\/p>\n

The way this is headed, teams won\u2019t be able to take advantage of \u201ccap squeeze\u201d scenarios to bolster their roster. The UFA market is already on the verge of becoming redundant \u2014 perhaps even obsolete as more teams increasingly \u201clock up their stars\u201d ahead of July 1. Ditto RFA offer sheets.<\/p>\n

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But perhaps in the coming years, with financial barriers having been lifted, there will be more opportunities for transactions between willing partners of similar or different competitive levels.
Even Kevin Cheveldayoff\u2019s harshest critics would have to agree that the man has a pretty remarkable track record when it comes to making hockey trades.<\/p>\n

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In this shifting NHL economic climate, that could be a potential foundation for optimism \u2014 to offset the current landslide of pessimism surrounding the franchise.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Descrease article font size Increase article font size With the NHL salary ceiling rising from US$95.5 million to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5121],"tags":[5,78,4,43,77,18,387,5288],"class_list":["post-572327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg-jets","tag-hockey","tag-jets","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-winnipeg","tag-winnipeg-jets","tag-winnipeg-sports","tag-winnipegjets"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116556498134088257","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}