Utah Mammoth young gun Logan Cooley and impending UFA Martin Necas both earned eight-figure cap hits on new deals last week. (Photo by Chris Gardner/Getty Images)
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A rising NHL salary cap and upcoming changes to the collective bargaining agreement have helped trigger a flurry of long-term contract signings during the first month of the 2025-26 season.
After Sept. 15, 2026, maximum term limits will drop by one year. For now, players can re-sign with their current teams for up to eight years, and up to seven with a new team if they’re a free agent. Even though the cap ceiling is currently in a period of unprecedented growth, players who like their current situations are moving quickly to make long-term commitments.
Last week’s three big signings involved players at different stages of their careers.
Martin Necas – Colorado Avalanche
At 26, Necas was set to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2026. Selected 12th overall by the Carolina Hurricanes in 2017, the silky scorer has found a home on Nathan MacKinnon’s right wing since the Avalanche brought him in as the key piece in the Mikko Rantanen trade last January.
In Carolina, he was never able to settle on a deal that would bring him long-term security. When he signed a two-year contract that would walk him to UFA status after filing for arbitration in July of 2024, it was all-but-assured that he’d be moving on.
On Thursday, Necas finally signed that long-term deal, committing for eight seasons at a cap hit of $11.5 million. That keeps him below MacKinnon, who’s at $12.6 million, but above superstar defenseman Cale Makar for one year, anyway. Makar’s current cap hit is $9 million a year but his deal expires at the end of the 2026-27 season. That makes him eligible to sign a contract extension next July.
Necas’s deal comes in just below the $12 million cap hit that Rantanen received from the Dallas Stars — and is also a little lower in terms of present-value dollars, since it starts one year later. Still, it’s a tidy payday for a player with a ton of talent who is entering the prime of his career as a key member of a Stanley Cup contender.
Logan Cooley – Utah Mammoth
At 21, Logan Cooley is playing out the third and final year of his entry-level contract, earning the NHL-maximum $950,000 base salary for players in his position, along with potential performance bonuses.
That’ll change next season. On Wednesday, the Utah Mammoth inked an eight-year extension with a cap hit of $10 million per season.
Drafted third overall in 2022, that deal will make Cooley the Mammoth’s highest-paid player starting in 2025-26, surpassing the $8.5 million cap hit of defenseman Mikhail Sergachev. The team’s three highest-paid forwards, J.J. Peterka, Clayton Keller and Dylan Guenther, all land in the $7-million range.
All four are important players for a team that is thriving since moving from Arizona a year and a half ago and off to an 8-3 start this season. The timing of Cooley’s contract expiration put him in position to bump his rate to a new level, and his performance has backed up his ask. With two 20-goal seasons already under his belt and eight goals in 11 games so far this season, Cooley sits just ahead of Juraj Slafkovsky as the highest-producing player to date from the 2022 draft.
Slafkovsky made his NHL debut one year earlier, and has played 43 more games. That also meant that his entry-level deal expired sooner. When he signed his eight-year extension on July 1, 2024, he was seen to have done very well for himself with a cap hit of $7.6 million and a somewhat smaller body of work.
According to Emily Kaplan of ESPN, Cooley began to produce in earnest this season after a conversation about the contract Mammoth owner Ryan Smith assured him that he was ready to make the long-term commitment.
“It allowed me to be free,” Cooley said. “Maybe earlier in the season it was on the back of my mind. But now I felt like my mind was free and I could do the things I love to do.”
Some other promising young stars who will be coming out of their entry-level contracts at the end of this season include Connor Bedard of the Chicago Blackhawks, Leo Carlsson of the Anaheim Ducks and Adam Fantilli of the Columbus Blue Jackets. Depending how this year unfolds for them, Cooley’s deal could serve as a benchmark for their respective agents.
Thomas Harley – Dallas Stars
Defenseman Thomas Harley has signed an eight-year contract extension with the Dallas Stars. (Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images)
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Last week’s third max-term signing came on Tuesday, when defenseman Thomas Harley inked an eight-year extension with the Dallas Stars that carries a cap hit of $10.587 million.
That’s a tidy raise for the 24-year-old. He’s in the second year of a two-year bridge deal that he signed after his entry-level deal, which had a $4 million average annual value.
Coming off 47 points in the 2023-24 season, Harley could have been positioned for a bigger payday on his second deal, but the Stars’ salary structure limited what they could pay. And while Dallas added Rantanen’s $12 million and new commitments of $8.4 million for Wyatt Johnston and $8.25 million for Jake Oettinger starting this season, Jamie Benn’s long $9.5 million deal is now off the books while Tyler Seguin is in the second-last year of his $9.85 million cap hit.
One of the challenges of being a permanent Cup contender is that a large number of roster players are deserving of big paydays. Three-time reigning NHL GM of the year Jim Nill has one more tricky contract left to negotiate, for perennial point-per-game forward Jason Robertson. The 26-year-old is in a strong bargaining position: on an expiring deal at $7.75 million, with arbitration rights and just one year away from unrestricted free agency.
Another pending RFA with arbitration rights who’s making a case for a significant raise under the current terms of the NHL salary cap is Pavel Dorofeyev of the Vegas Golden Knights. After amassing 35 goals and 52 points last season, the 25-year-old has found quick chemistry with new teammate Mitch Marner and is currently among the league’s goal-scoring leaders. Dorofeyev is on an expiring contract that carries a cap hit of just $1.835 million. He’s also eligible for salary arbitration, but still two years away fro unrestricted status.