NHL Now In ‘Player Empowerment Era,’ Says ESPN Insider Emily Kaplan

Kirill Kaprizov signed the richest deal in NHL history on Sept. 30, 2025, inking an eight-year deal with a cap hit of $17 million per season. (Photo by Bailey Hillesheim/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

As ESPN’s NHL Insider Emily Kaplan put it, the NHL’s ‘Player Empowerment Era’ is now truly at hand. After Kirill Kaprizov declined to become the highest-paid player in NHL history when he turned down an eight-year deal worth $128 million three weeks ago, the Minnesota Wild left wing put pen to paper on Tuesday on a deal that bumped that average annual value from $16 to $17 million per season, for a new benchmark of $136 million.

Heading into the negotiations, Wild owner Craig Leipold and GM Bill Guerin had made no secret of their willingness to do whatever it took to retain the 28-year-old, who’s in the prime of his career and arguably the most dynamic player in franchise history. Rather than hew to the oft-referenced NHL credo that star players should take less money than they deserve in order to better build out a strong team around them, Kaprizov and his agent used their leverage to hold out for more — successfully.

“Part of it’s due to shifting attitudes culturally,” Kaplan said during a media conference call on Tuesday, just hours after Kaprizov’s deal became official. “Part of it is just the fact that the salary cap is seeing a significant increase, and it’s overdue. The past several years it was stagnant due to COVID but because of that, we have guys that are saying, ‘I know what I’m worth and I know where I want to go, and I’m not afraid to stand my ground.’ I think that aligns with a lot of the other sports.”

Kaprizov’s number marks a giant leap from the deals that other NHL stars have recently signed. A year ago, Leon Draisaitl made history by commanding a cap hit of $14 million. Subsequent deals saw forwards Mikko Rantanen and Mitch Marner earn $12 million each on eight-year contracts with the Dallas Stars and Vegas Golden Knights, respectively.

All three of those contracts take effect this fall, in 2025-26. Kaprizov is the first major star to ink an extension that begins in the 2026-27 season, when the salary cap will rise again from $95.5 million to $104 million and the maximum AAV available for any player will reach $20.8 million.

That 2026 free agent class includes Connor McDavid — who continues to hold his cards close to his chest as the Edmonton Oilers prepare to follow up consecutive trips to the Stanley Cup Final.

When he’s ready, McDavid can essentially write his own ticket, opined ESPN analyst Ray Ferraro.

“If he wanted to sign, it would be done,” Ferraro said on Tuesday. “If he wanted a two-year? Done deal. Like, do you think there’s a negotiation to this? It’s an open piece of paper, I would assume, with just different years on it, and he fills in both columns. If you wanted two years, three years, six years, wouldn’t it be done? That’s my gut sense of where they’re at right now.”

Kaprizov’s new deal is more likely to be used as a comparable for the next tier of impending UFAs who are also in their prime years. Players like Jack Eichel of the Vegas Golden Knights, Kyle Connor of the Winnipeg Jets, Adrian Kempe of the Los Angeles Kings and Martin Necas of the Colorado Avalanche all just got a little more expensive.

Further complicating the landscape for owners, the Player Empowerment Era is about more than just money. While NHL players have typically preferred to re-sign with their current teams and there’s a badge of honor that comes with playing a full career in one uniform, the 2024-25 season began with Steven Stamkos’s shock move from the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Nashville Predators and continued with the Avalanche dealing Mikko Rantanen — who then forced a second trade away from the Carolina Hurricanes — and Brad Marchand successfully chasing a Stanley Cup win after leaving his captaincy with the Boston Bruins.

On top of the uncertainty around McDavid, that has set up another once-unthinkable conversation — could Sidney Crosby really leave the only team he has ever known, the Pittsburgh Penguins?

“That man has tunnel vision — he is just so focused on what is in front of him,” said Kaplan, who is putting together a feature story on Crosby that will run as part of ESPN’s opening-night triple-header on Oct. 7. “So many people around him, for several years, have been trying to float the possibility, ‘Hey, look — you’re on a team that’s rebuilding. You’re Sidney Crosby. You’re still operating at such a high level. Don’t you want to go to a situation where you can win again?’ From my understanding, in years past, he has shut it down because he is singularly focused on the Penguins. But we’re going to see how this season goes.”

At 38, Crosby is entering a new two-year contract that is the definition of ‘team-friendly.’ After finishing 10th in NHL scoring last season with 91 points — his third-straight 90-plus point campaign — he’ll be earning the same cap hit as he has since the 2008-09 season, $8.7 million.

Crosby and Kaprizov’s stories are just two that Kaplan will be following this season in a re-imagined role with ESPN. Per Front Office Sports, “While Kaplan will be onsite for big events including NHL opening night on Oct. 7, she will mostly occupy a role similar to league insiders Adam Schefter, Shams Charania, and Jeff Passan, where she will report and dissect news of the NHL for ESPN’s studio coverage.”

Kaplan has been up close to the action at ice level since ESPN began its current seven-year NHL rights deal in 2021-22, but is looking forward to the change.

“I’m really excited to be a bigger part of our studio show — breaking news, sharing stories, giving fans tidbits said they wouldn’t know, to care about their teams deeper, in a way that I think aligns with the reporting that we see in other sports,” she said. “I’m also looking forward to the opportunity of appearing on more of ESPN’s daytime programming, which I think will elevate the NHL in not only the ESPN ecosystem, but here in the United States.”

That should mean less travel, but don’t expect Kaplan to rest easy in her new position.

“I think it is pretty daunting to say that I’m going to be the NHL Insider for ESPN,” she said. “There are some challenges to that, for sure. I mean, for one, I consider that this is a role that, traditionally, women have not held. We’re also covering a league that notoriously is so tight-lipped with information.”

As the Player Empowerment Era takes hold, ESPN’s opening-night triple-header on Oct. 7 will feature the Chicago Blackhawks visiting the Florida Panthers for the Stanley Cup banner-raising at Amerant Bank Arena (5 p.m. ET), followed by Crosby and the Penguins visiting their former coach Mike Sullivan and New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden (8 p.m. ET), and capping off with the beginning of Anze Kopitar’s farewell season as the Los Angeles Kings host the Colorado Avalanche at Crypto.com Arena (10:30 p.m. ET).