The NHL’s ‘4 Nations Face-Off’ is one step closer to becoming reality.
Meeting with the media in Sunrise, Fla. on Saturday ahead of Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed that the tournament will run from Feb. 12-20, 2025 at Bell Centre in Montreal and TD Garden in Boston.
The format for the seven-game tournament will be a straight round-robin, followed by a championship game.
The first four games will be held in Montreal from Feb. 12-15. Then, the scene will shift to Boston for a double-header to close out the round robin on Presidents’ Day, Feb. 17 and the championship game on Thursday, Feb. 20.
The tournament will run in lieu of an all-star game in 2025. It will mark the first time that NHL players have squared off in best-on-best competition since the World Cup of Hockey in Toronto in 2016, which was won by Canada.
Canada, the United States, Sweden and Finland will be the participating nations in the 2025 event. Notably, the tournament does not include Russia, which remains sanctioned from participating in international hockey competition by the International Ice Hockey Federation, as well as the newly-crowned 2024 world champions from Czechia.
Bettman confirmed Saturday that ‘4 Nations Face-Off’ rosters will be comprised strictly of NHL players. Beyond the Russians, it would be difficult for any of the non-competing nations to build a competitive roster from their NHL talent pool, which is more limited that they’ll be able to draw from at when they return to the Winter Olympics in Italy in 2026.
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2024-25 Salary Cap Set at $88 Million
Also on Saturday, the NHL confirmed that the salary cap ceiling will be set at $88 million for the 2024-25 season, a jump of $4.5 million from the 2023-24 level.
This is on track with the projection that Bettman offered heading into the 2022-23 season, and indicates that the league and players have returned to level ground following the financial challenges caused by the pandemic starting in 2020.
The $88 million ceiling is up slightly from the projection of $87.7 million that has been used by salary-information websites like CapFriendly.com through the year. It’s believed that final revenue numbers came out at the high end of league projections thanks to having two of the league’s highest-revenue teams, the New York Rangers and the Edmonton Oilers, make it to the final four of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
“I know the general managers and the teams are excited to have more flexibility,” said Bettman, who added that he expected cap increases in subsequent years to remain “robust.”
Bettman also mentioned that the NHL set a single-season record for attendance in 2023-24, approaching 23 million fans, and that the league has reached an all-time high with 77 national corporate sponsors, 46 of which have activated during the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Current CBA Expires After 2025-26 Season
Wrapping up his first full season at the helm, NHL Players’ Association executive director Marty Walsh also appeared at Saturday’s press conference, underscoring his group’s collaboration with the league on both the international calendar and the ‘Hockey Fights Cancer’ initiative which celebrated its 25th anniversary with more than $4 million raised this year.
Asked to characterize the current relationship between the two organizations, “It’s very open, candid, good dialogue,” Bettman said. “I think we have a relationship that may be the best it’s been in the history of labor relations between the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association. We’re collaborating on lots of important initiatives, and I think that bodes well for the future growth of the game and of the league.”
For the moment, the focus has been on growing revenues. And Walsh’s influence seemed to loom large in the league’s decision to finally set the wheels in motion to move the Arizona Coyotes — they’ll play in Salt Lake City, Utah this fall.
But it won’t be long until negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement begin in earnest. The current deal expires at the end of the 2025-26 season and the NHL is no stranger to hard-line negotiating. Previously, half a season was lost to lockouts in the 1994-95 and 2012-13 seasons and the entire 2004-05 season was scrubbed before the current salary-cap structure was put into place.
On Saturday, Daly hinted that one issue which could be on the table for the upcoming negotiation will be to change the workings of the league’s long-term injured reserve system (LTIR).
“I think majority of the people I’ve heard from would suggest, in a perfect world, we should try to address it in some way differently than we’re addressing it,” Daly said. “None of them thought it was a major competitive issue in the short term, and it’s something, ultimately, we’re going to have to negotiate with Players’ Association.
“So whether that can happen with two years left on a collective bargaining agreement, I’m not making any promises. Whether it’s going to be something we address in a broader collective bargaining negotiation — quite possibly.”
Cup Final Entertainment To Include Shania Twain
The Stanley Cup Concert Series is set to run alongside each game of the Final, with The Kid Laroi performing for Game 1 in Sunrise and DJ Khaled for Game 2.
When the scene shifts to Ottawa, rockers Our Lady Peace will headline Game 3 on Thursday, June 13, followed by country superstar Shania Twain on Saturday, June 15.
