The 2027 NHL trade deadline is expected on Monday, March 1, 2027, at 3 p.m. ET — though as of now the league has not formally announced it.
It will be the first deadline played under the full new collective bargaining agreement, and the second under the playoff salary cap that killed the LTIR loophole. Here is what actually changed, and what it means in March.
The date, and how solid it is
| Details | How solid | |
|---|---|---|
| Date | Monday, March 1, 2027 | Expected — calculated from the CBA, reported by Michael Russo of The Athletic. No NHL announcement. |
| Time | 3:00 p.m. ET | Expected — 3 p.m. ET has held every year since at least 2024, but no time has been published for 2027. |
| End of regular season | Saturday, April 10, 2027 | Confirmed by the NHL in its schedule release. |
| Games played by the deadline | Roughly 64 of 84, about 76 percent | Follows from the confirmed schedule. |
Under the collective bargaining agreement, the deadline falls 40 days before the end of the regular season. The NHL has confirmed the 2026-27 season ends on Saturday, April 10, 2027. Count back 40 days and you land on Monday, March 1.
The one exception, and why it doesn’t apply. The 40-day rule is overridden when the resulting date falls on a weekend. That is exactly what happened last season — the 2026 deadline was pulled forward to 34 days to avoid landing on a Saturday. March 1, 2027 is a Monday, so there is no reason for the league to move it.
The playoff cap: what it is and why it matters
For most of the salary cap era there was no cap in the playoffs at all. That created a loophole teams used ruthlessly: park an injured star on long-term injured reserve, spend the cap relief at the deadline, then activate the star for Game 1 of the playoffs and ice a roster you could never have dressed in the regular season.
It won Stanley Cups. Tampa Bay did it in 2021, when Nikita Kucherov’s $9.5 million cap hit sat on LTIR all season and the relief helped land David Savard; Kucherov returned for the playoffs and led the postseason in scoring. Vegas did it in 2023 with Mark Stone’s $9.5 million, which funded Ivan Barbashev, Teddy Blueger and Jonathan Quick. Florida did it in 2025 with Matthew Tkachuk, adding Seth Jones and Brad Marchand and dressing a Cup Final lineup roughly $3.25 million over the ceiling.
Three championships in five years, across three franchises. The league closed it.
How the playoff cap works now. Before each playoff game, a team submits its 18 skaters and two goaltenders to NHL Central Registry. Their combined cap hits must sit at or under the ceiling — $104 million for the 2027 playoffs, the same as this season’s upper limit. Submissions are due at 3 p.m. local time or five hours before puck drop, whichever comes first.
A few details that matter:
- Full cap hits, not pro-rated. A player acquired on March 1 counts at his full annual average value in the playoffs.
- Dead cap counts. Buyouts, buried contracts, cap-recapture penalties and 35-plus charges all go against the number.
- Retained salary is asymmetric — and this is the deadline trap. The retaining team’s share is pro-rated by regular-season days remaining, but the acquiring team carries its portion in full. Retention buys a buyer less playoff relief than it buys regular-season relief.
- Injured players simply don’t count, because they aren’t dressed. No LTIR mechanism is needed.
The LTIR change nobody talks about
The playoff cap gets the headlines, but the rule that actually bites in March is the cap on LTIR relief itself.
A team placing a player on LTIR who is expected to return that season now receives relief capped at the previous season’s league average salary — regardless of what the player actually earns. For 2026-27 that maximum is $3,973,228. Full relief is available only if the player is ruled out for the remainder of the regular season and the playoffs, in which case he cannot come back at all.
So a $12 million star on LTIR now generates under $4 million of deadline buying power instead of $12 million. The loophole is closed at both ends.
What to expect on March 1
Probably a quiet one. Last season’s deadline was the slowest since 2021 — 20 trades involving 33 players, against a four-year average of 22 and 37.
| Season | Deadline | Trades | Players |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | Feb 24, 2020 | 32 | 55 |
| 2020-21 | Apr 12, 2021 | 17 | 26 |
| 2021-22 | Mar 21, 2022 | 32 | 51 |
| 2022-23 | Mar 3, 2023 | 21 | 34 |
| 2023-24 | Mar 8, 2024 | 23 | 33 |
| 2024-25 | Mar 7, 2025 | 24 | 47 |
| 2025-26 | Mar 6, 2026 | 20 | 33 |
Frequently asked questions
It is expected on Monday, March 1, 2027, at 3 p.m. ET. The NHL has not formally announced the date; it follows from the CBA rule placing the deadline 40 days before the end of the regular season, which the league has confirmed as April 10, 2027.
Yes, since the 2026 playoffs. Each team’s 18 skaters and two goaltenders must fit under the ceiling — $104 million for 2027 — for every individual game, submitted to the league before puck drop.
Not meaningfully. LTIR relief for a player expected to return is capped at $3,973,228 in 2026-27, and the playoff cap means a stashed star can’t simply be activated for Game 1.
In theory, but not at the deadline. A second retention requires 75 regular-season days to have passed since the first, and there aren’t that many left in March.
No. A player must be on the roster at the 3 p.m. deadline to be eligible for the playoffs. Trades can still be made afterwards, but acquired players cannot appear in either the remaining regular season or the postseason.
