The NHL Players Association head Marty Walsh was at the Garden on Saturday to thump the tub about the upcoming Four Nations tournament, but he picked a good time to address the media with the news of the big bump in the salary cap coming over the next three years breaking on Friday.
Next season the cap will jump from $88 million to $95.5 million, then to $104 million in 2026-27 and finally $113.5 million in ‘27-28.
That’s good news for players and teams — at least ones that are willing to spend to the cap.
Walsh is in the process of gathering feedback, but not surprisingly, it’s been positive so far.
“I think a lot of players are satisfied,” said Walsh. “They’re happy to see this type of growth. They haven’t seen this type of growth ever. And there’s predictability for the next couple of seasons. So putting that out is a benefit to the players and fans understanding what’s happening.”
Walsh at some point will lock horns with commissioner Gary Bettman to hammer out a new CBA as the current one is set to expire in 2026. When Bettman was in town recently, he spoke about the good relationship he’s had with Walsh, who echoed the sentiment.
“We work well together,” said Walsh. “When I think about my role as head of the PA, when you look at what we’re doing, part of it is business, part of it is growing the game of hockey, getting more fans to to watch hockey with tournaments. I talked with my team at the PA and said we have to work with the league on this. On the union side of it, we’re going to have some negotiation in the near future here, there’s a respect on both sides. Any time I’ve been involved in a labor negotiation and watched it go bad, it’s when one side doesn’t respect he other side. I don’t think that’s not happening in this particular case and that’s a good way to start.”
As for the Four Nations tournament, which runs from February 12-20 concluding with the championship game at the Garden, ticket sales in Boston were slow to start. But Walsh feels like momentum will build over the next few weeks.
“People that I know talked to me about it a lot but I think that now with football being beyond the AFC and NFC Championship games heading into the Super Bowl, people are starting to focus on this tournament,” said Walsh. “After the Super Bowl, it’s going to be two weeks with international hockey. I think a lot more people are going to start paying attention to it,” he said.
One of the unfortunate aspects is that one of the host city’s biggest stars will be on the sidelines. The participating countries are the USA, Canada, Finland and Sweden. That leaves out Czechia and David Pastrnak.
“What happened there, and Pasta was one of them, we talked to him…when I took over in 2023, one of the things was we wanted to get the World Cup of Hockey back in place and wanted to do the Olympics. So we started talking to the league bout Olympics and came to an agreement,” said Walsh “And we started talking about World Cup of Hockey, which are still ongoing. Hopefully we’ll have something concrete down the road. But we realized we didn’t have enough time. We talked about six team, eight teams and we went with the four because we just didn’t have the time to put a tournament that big together.”
The international scene is currently complicated by the politics of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but Walsh said that didn’t affect the decision to keep Four Nations to four countries.
“Not necessarily,” said Walsh. “I represent Russian players and I talked to them all in the fall tour about this. We’re kind of waiting to see what the IOC does with the 2026 Olympics. There’s other political challenges with other countries willing to or not willing to play in a tournament if Russia is in it. We have to sort through all that. I would love to see a tournament with every country represented.”
It has been a whirlwind decade for Walsh in recent years. He left the Boston mayor’s office two years after being elected to a second four-year term and then left his Labor Secretary post in the Biden administration for the PA position.
“It was interesting,” said Walsh. “My transition from mayor to Labor Secretary was complicated because it happened quickly. I wasn’t looking to leave. I missed the job, I missed the action of Boston. Then the transition to Labor Secretary to the NHLPA, a little different. It’s kind of like going back to my roots. Once you get through the first couple of months, you settle in and your get to fall tour, so you get the chance to meet the players…It was a good transition.”…
Trent Frederic, a UFA-to-be and one of the B’s more tradeable assets, had not heard about the bump in the cap when he got off the ice after Friday’s practice. He greeted it as good news, though he wasn’t sure how it would affect a player like him.
“You never know how it’s going to work out,” said Frederic. “You see in other leagues that the salary cap goes up and you think everybody gets a pay upgrade. But a lot of times it may just be the top dogs make more money. You never know how it works out. But this is more of a team game. I’m sure the money will be spread out. But typically I feel like when something like this happens in other sports, the quarterback is making $50 million and the free safety is making the same as he’s always made, maybe a little bit more.”
Frederic expressed a strong desire to remain a Bruin (“This is all I know”), but has put the situation out of his mind.
“I’m not really worried about it,” said Frederic. “Obviously I want to have more team success because more team success we have, the better it is, selfishly, for myself. I’m just focusing on trying to win as many games as we can and extend this thing and get this team rolling the right way so we can get in the playoffs and make a run. The more we do that, the more likely good stuff will happen for me.”…
Mike Callahan drew back in the lineup and Parker Wotherspoon came out. Oliver Wahlstrom also went back in the lineup for Vinni Lettieri.
“He’s actually been fairly good when he’s played, in fairness to Wally. He just hasn’t been able to finish of some of his opportunities,” said coach Joe Sacco. “But we want to see him finish a little more when he gets those opportunities. If he’s around the net, he’s got to look to put the puck there, not defer, have a shot mentality. We like to see him play off the shot a little more so his linemates can create some rebounds.”
Wahlstrom didn’t finish, but he did take six shots, three of which it the net. Callahan, meanwhile, took a puck in the mouth in the second period and could not return. Sacco said he was “getting some work done” and didn’t have an update.