Top hockey players are cashing in on rising NHL revenues after a summer spending spree

Leo Carlsson was in the passenger's seat when his phone rang this summer with some life-changing news. Good thing his dad, Kenneth, was driving.

Agents Matt and Ryan Keator called to tell Carlsson the Philadelphia Flyers were prepared to sign him to a $90 million offer sheet that would make him the NHL's highest-paid player at $18 million per year. The proposalchanged hockey economics even before the Anaheim Ducks matched it to keep Carlsson, who became the face of rising salaries across the league.

“Players are just thanking me,” he said.

Carlsson raised the bar and then deals for Macklin Celebrini with San Jose and Cale Makar's record-setter with Colorado pushed it even higher as part of a seismic offseason for hockey economics. With revenues rising and the salary cap getting record increases, it is not hard to envision a future when someone is making $30 million per season.

“Hockey’s kind of overshadowed by those other sports in terms of how players are being paid and stuff like that,” said Celebrini, whose $94 million extension starts in 2027-28. “With more attention, the excitement about the NHL and how much more coverage it’s getting, I think it’s going in the right direction where owners are making more money, players are making money. It’s a good situation for everyone.”

When the cap was put in place in 2005 coming out of a lockout that wiped out an entire season, the ceiling for spending was $39 million for each of the then-30 teams. No player could make more than $7.8 million per year.

The cap more than doubled to $81.5 million by 2019, before the pandemic hit sports hard and stunted growth.

“It was flat — fairly flat — for so long,” Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic said.

There were small increases through 2024, when the cap jumped to $88 million. Going up to $95.5 million last season, $104 million now and $113.5 million for 2027-28 has paved the way for team spending in a big way; the initial cap projection is $127.5 million for 2028-29.

“There’s a lot of money coming into the system because of how we’re coming off of COVID,” said Ron Hainsey, a retired defenseman who's now the assistant executive director for the NHL Players' Association. “With so much more money coming into the system over three years, where was it going to go?”

It has been going to players, who get 50% of hockey-related revenue under the collective bargaining agreement.

A year ago, Minnesota signed Kirill Kaprizov to the richest contract in league history at $136 million. Makar got $163.2 million last month, a new top annual salary at $20.4 million starting next season.

“Arguably he should be getting more,” Celebrini said. “Not arguably: He should be getting more. I’m not going to argue that. No one’s arguing that. He should be getting a lot more. Hopefully it just keeps going up for every guy whose deal is expiring.”

Sidney Crosby recalls Pittsburgh teammate Sergei Gonchar being his highest-paid teammate at $5 million during his rookie year more than two decades ago. Makar has set a new baseline, which fellow defenseman Quinn Hughes of Minnesota and NHL MVP Nikita Kucherov of Tampa Bay could surpass when they sign their next deals, even if the total dollars are less because the term is shorter.

“It's incredible to see where the game is going,” Makar said. “Obviously the salary cap’s going where it is, and guys are going to continue to make more.”

The NFL and NBA each have more than 100 players making more than $20.4 million this season and Major League Baseball has 74 (Nine of the 10 biggest sports contracts by total value in North America belong to MLB players).

Hockey is beginning to catch up.

“When you look at the NHL compared to other leagues, the salary, it’s obviously a lot lower for plenty of different reasons,” said New Jersey's Jack Hughes, who scored the Olympic gold-medal-winning goal for the U.S. in February. “But the fact that guys are getting paid $20 (million a year) now, that’s a great look for the league.”

The most an NHL player can make is 20% of the cap, making the maximum annual value $22.7 million in 2027-28. That could become $25.5 million or more when Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews are eligible for new contracts and Matthew Schaefer's rookie deal with the New York Islanders expires in 2028.

“My agent can worry about that,” Schaefer said. “Math was fun, but it’s not what I’m good at.”

McDavid declined a raise from $12.5 million a year to give Edmonton more room to build a roster that can win the Stanley Cup. Crosby has remained at $8.7 million — his jersey number and birthday and year — since 2008 and hoisted the Cup three times, not feeling pressure to take more money.

“You're aware of kind of the big picture and how contracts that are signed affect different guys and the market and all that stuff, so I think it’s in the back of your mind,” Crosby said. “But ultimately guys have to do what’s best for themselves and try to balance all that.”

A hard cap and the desire to win makes it a delicate balance. Celebrini said making sure there was enough space for the Sharks to surround him with talent was part of the conversations with agent Pat Brisson and general manager Mike Grier. Celebrini takes up 16.6% of his team's cap, Carlsson 15.9% and Makar 18%.

No team since 2005 has won the Cup with a player counting over $10 million against a year's team salaries. With nearly two-thirds of teams with at least one player making that, that is sure to change soon as tides rise across the sport.

“You can’t win without superstars,” said Sakic, who has three in Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas. “We expect our team to be built to win for a long time. Unless you have guys like Cale and Nate on your team, it makes it a lot harder.”

AP Sports Writer Pat Graham contributed to this report.

See AP’s full NHL coverage here

Winnipeg Jets left wing Kyle Connor, left, knocks the puck away from Colorado Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar in the second period of a preseason NHL hockey game Friday, Sept. 25, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

FILE - San Jose Sharks center Macklin Celebrini (71) drives the puck as Vancouver Canucks left wing Liam Ohgren (92) defends during the third period of their NHL ice hockey game in San Jose, Calif., Saturday, April 11, 2026. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

FILE - Anaheim Ducks center Leo Carlsson celebrates his empty net goal during the third period of Game 6 in the first round of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoffs series against the Edmonton Oilers, April 30, 2026, in Anaheim, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Christa Pike was 18 when she killed a classmate in a jealous rage and became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row. Now 50, she is scheduled to be put to death Wednesday in what would be Tennessee’s first execution of a woman in 200 years.

Pike and her boyfriend were convicted in the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at Knoxville Job Corps. Prosecutors said Pike feared Slemmer was a romantic rival and lured her to a secluded area where she and her boyfriend tortured and killed Slemmer. The case got widespread attention because of the brutality of the killing, the ages of the people involved and because a satanic symbol was carved into the victim’s body.

Pike does not deny her guilt, but her attorneys and supporters argue a death sentence is not appropriate for a crime committed at that age by a teen with untreated mental illness after a childhood of brutal sexual abuse and neglect. Slemmer’s mother wants the execution to go forward, saying she has waited decades to see Pike’s sentence carried out.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced Monday that he would not grant clemency. Pike’s attorneys have asked the Supreme Court to stay the execution.

Pike's attorneys said she experienced an exceptionally traumatic and abusive childhood.

Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell said Pike was sexually abused starting from when she was a toddler and that she was raped at ages 11 and 17. He said Pike's lawyers at the penalty phase of her trial did not present the jury with what he said was critical information about her past or argue that her age should be a consideration.

Pike was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. Pike told police she initially only wanted to fight Slemmer but ended up killing her in a frenzied attack. In her clemency petition, Pike’s attorneys said her untreated mental illness and background made her unable to “put the brakes on.”

“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime,” Pike said in a statement included in her clemency petition.

Ferrell said more today is known about adolescent brain development and that Pike's death sentence is an outlier. He noted that Pike's boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 at the time, was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole because of his age. He was denied parole last year. A third teen admitted to being an accessory and received probation.

In the modern death penalty era, Ferrell said, other 18-year-olds who were sentenced to death in Tennessee have since had their sentences reduced.

The Death Penalty Information Center said 275 people nationwide have been executed for crimes they committed at age 18, 19 or 20 in the modern death penalty era, but that death sentences for those in that age group have become increasingly rare.

“If Christa Pike was tried today, I do not believe a jury that knew about the documented sexual abuse and neglect she experienced as a child would sentence her to death,” Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said.

Speaking by telephone from Florida, Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, also pointed to her daughter's age and said Slemmer never got a chance to grow up.

“Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” Martinez said.

Martinez said her daughter volunteered with the Special Olympics, loved roller skating and wanted to pursue a career in computers.

“She was easygoing. She was a computer geek to begin with. She and my husband would build and tear apart the computers constantly,” Martinez said. “She trusted everybody, and that was her downfall.”

She said her daughter called her from Job Corps on the night of the murder, but the call was dropping because of bad reception. When Martinez called back, her daughter had already gone out.

“Not a day goes by, or a minute goes by that I do not think about Colleen. Holidays are the worst. Colleen’s birthday was last week. She would have been 51,” Martinez said.

The killing rocked the city of Knoxville. Prosecutors said Pike cut Slemmer with a box cutter and beat her with a large chunk of asphalt. Elements of the crime stoked fears of Satan worship during the “satanic panic” of the 1980s and 1990s. Shipp, Pike's boyfriend, has admitted that he was the one who carved a pentagram, a star-shaped symbol associated with Satanism, into her body.

If Pike’s execution proceeds as scheduled, it would be Tennessee’s first execution of a woman since 1820, Maher said.

Executions of female inmates are also rare in the U.S. Since 1976, 18 women have been executed in the country, representing about 1% of all executions, according to the center.

Most recently, Missouri in 2023 executed Amber McLaughlin, a transgender woman, for a 2003 killing, in what is believed to be the first execution of a transgender woman in the U.S. In 2021, the federal government executed Lisa Montgomery, marking the first time in nearly seven decades that the U.S. government has put a female inmate to death. Georgia executed a woman in 2015.

Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama.

In this image from video provided by WBIR-TV, Christa Pike cries after being sentenced to death on March 30, 1996 in Knoxville, Tenn. (WBIR-TV via AP)

In this image from video provided by WBIR-TV, Christa Pike cries after being sentenced to death on March 30, 1996 in Knoxville, Tenn. (WBIR-TV via AP)

FILE - This undated photo provided by the Tennessee Department of Correction shows Christa Pike. (Tennessee Department of Correction via AP, File)