NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced that the NHL and NHLPA will commence talks on a new CBA in the first week of April.

The current CBA is set to expire after the conclusion of the 2025-26 season and would be the first time major changes have been made to it since it was signed in early 2013 to end the 2012 lockout. The CBA was set to expire in 2022 originally, but was ratified to a six-year extension during the COVID-19 pandemic before the league commenced its bubble playoffs.

“I’m hoping we can do this quickly, quietly and painlessly,” Bettman said on his hopes for CBA talks.

Given the scars left behind by all of the lockouts that occurred with Bettman at the helm, the fact that the NHL and NHLPA are willing to get a head start on negotiations is an encouraging sign of the state of the relationship between the two parties. With the salary cap seeing significant jumps soon, ratings seeing significant growth in the U.S., and the 4 Nations Face-Off being a huge success, there is a lot of momentum in hockey that Bettman and Marty Walsh will surely want to capitalize on.

Speaking of the 4 Nations, Bettman also told reporters that the tournament has ‘raised the bar’ on what the All-Star weekend could be and it may impact future iterations of the festivities. This means the 2026 All-Star game set to be held on Long Island may look very different from what we are accustomed to or even cancelled entirely.

The weekend of the event is right before the NHL players head over to Milan to participate in the first Winter Olympics with international best-on-best hockey since 2014, so there will likely be incentives to take advantage of the momentum generated by the 4 Nations. Perhaps they could prioritize the skills competition since that is the more memorable portion of the All-Star weekend, though everything is on the table as per Bettman.

Additionally, the commissioner announced that the 2025-26 season will start on October 7 which falls a week ahead of Canadian Thanksgiving. He also expressed his disdain for the decentralized draft, meaning we may be right back to the original format after this year depending on how the 2025 Draft goes.

When asked about expanding three-on-three overtime beyond the current five minutes, Bettman shot down the idea due to concerns about the deterioration of ice conditions as well as additional wear and tear on the players. And don’t expect the NHL to go back to the old 1v8 playoff format anytime soon because the commissioner is a fan of the current setup as is.

Suffice it to say that Bettman left a lot for hockey fans to sink their teeth into, including the fact that CBA talks will soon begin and potential changes to the All-Star format.