NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement The NHL collective bargaining agreement is the basic contract between the National Hockey League ( NHL ) team owners and the NHL Players Association ( NHLPA ) , designed to be arrived at through the typical labour - management negotiations of collective bargaining . The most recent agreement , tentatively reached on July 13 , 2005 after a 2004 - 05 NHL lockout which caused the cancellation of the 2004 - 05 season , was ratified by the NHLPA membership on July 21 and by the league ' s Board of Governors on July 22 . The previous agreement was signed in 1995 following a lockout which shortened the 1994 - 95 NHL season to 48 games , a loss of 36 games from what had originally been an 84 - game schedule . None of the games scheduled for the 1994 segment of the season were ever played , the lockout lasting until after the beginning of 1995 . The collective bargaining agreement was initially to last for six seasons and be open to re - negotiation in 1998 , but was eventually extended to last until September 15 , 2004 ( one day after the World Cup of Hockey final in Toronto ) . On the expiration date of the old agreement , the NHL Board of Governors , representing ownership , met and unanimously decided that the 2004 - 05 NHL season would be delayed until a new collective bargaining agreement was in place . The owners ' lockout of players began at 12 : 01 a . m . on September 16 , 2004 , the day most NHL training camps would have opened had the NHLPA and the NHL come to an agreement . By November 2004 it became apparent that the entire 2004 - 05 season was in jeopardy and supposedly " last - ditch " efforts were undertaken to avoid this , but little , if any , progress was seen during the last few months of 2004 . The general consensus of many sportswriters and other knowledgeable observers was that if the entire 2004 - 05 season were cancelled , which indeed happened , that the owners would attempt to open training camps in September 2005 for the 2005 - 06 NHL season using " replacement players " who are not members of the NHLPA and those willing to resign from it . On February 13 , 2005 , the U . S . Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service called a meeting between the two sides to negotiate a new deal . Three days later , NHL commissioner Gary Bettman officially cancelled the season . There was briefly hope that a season could still have been salvaged , as hockey legends Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux , both now part - owners of NHL teams , brought the owners and players together for talks on February 19 . However , the talks failed to bring the two sides to an agreement . Once the possibility of losing a second season to the dispute became real and the two sides realised that the dispute had alienated a large portion of the league ' s fan base , the league and the NHLPA resumed negotiations again in June 2005 . Many pundits thought that the two sides wished to come to an agreement in early July , to coincide with the Canada Day ( July 1 ) and United States Independence Day ( July 4 ) holiday season . While July 4 passed without an agreement , momentum for a settlement was clearly building , with the two sides meeting daily between July 5 and July 13 . Reportedly , the July 12 session lasted until 6 a . m . local time on July 13 , at which time talks recessed for five hours . The sides announced their tentative agreement at 12 : 30 p . m . North American Eastern Standard Time ( 1630 UTC ) on the 13th . This day was aimed for , because it was the day before the Baseball All Star Game , so no other sporting event in North America was taking place . The most important provision of the new collective bargaining agreement is an overall salary cap for all NHL teams , tied to league revenues . The agreement also phases in a reduced age for free agency , which will eventually give players unrestricted rights to negotiate with any team at age 27 or after 7 years of play in the NHL , whichever comes first .