The CHL-NCAA agreement last November that allowed major junior players to pursue Div. I opportunities has already paid dividends.

The NCAA is benefitting from NHL draft prospects, such as the Carolina Hurricanes' Justin Poirier, Philadelphia Flyers' Porter Martone and Calgary Flames' Henry Mews who have thrived in their rookie collegiate campaigns when healthy.

Meanwhile, 2026 NHL draft eligibles, such as anticipated first overall pick Gavin McKenna and Keaton Verhoeff, have found success in spite of the tougher competition.

While it’s true the CHL has lost players ahead of when they’d traditionally age out, it, too, has seen an influx of American-based talent, improving the playing field. Ultimately, it’s hard not to suggest that it’s come out as winners from the deal, too.

As for down south? The same can’t be said.

A reported meeting between the junior leagues and NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly would suggest that even Daly recognizes that the United States League has not quite felt the same love from the new deal.

“I would say if I have any concerns about how these dynamics can play out, I think it’s keeping the USHL upright,” Daly told Sean Shapiro of eliteprospects.com. “I think Tier I junior hockey is important to the United States, so hopefully we find a solution.”

Many USHL players have moved away from the league, including the likes of JP Hurlbert (WHL), Nikita Klepov (OHL) and Yegor Shilov (QMJHL), all of whom are currently projected in or around the first to second round.

As for the new additions, aside from some unwanted overagers, they’ve been few and far between. Not to mention, the Muskegon Lumberjacks and Youngstown Phantoms put in applications to and were accepted to join the OHL last season, but have since been denied permission by USA Hockey.

There’s no doubt that the USHL is an important league, between housing the prestigious USA Hockey National Team Development Program, which has molded the likes of Auston Matthews, Jack Eichel and Quinn Hughes to name just a few, to non-NTDP products, such as Kyle Connor, Nick Schmaltz and Jeremy Swayman.

Thus, for the sake of its prestige and its continued success at developing players, it remains in the best interest for the NHL to try to help keep the USHL afloat. 

Below are a couple of solutions that could help ensure that the American player development pipeline remains unharmed by the new change.

CHL American Limit

For starters, the CHL could add a limit to American players on its teams' rosters. Funnily enough, this is taking a page out of the USHL’s own books as the league has a Canadian player limit.

There are 85 Americans in the OHL, 39 in the QMJHL and 89 in the WHL, according to eliteprospects.com. If the CHL were to institute a three U.S.-player limit per team, to match the existing import limit, this would cut the number of American players in the CHL by 45, assuming the QMJHL doesn’t add any additional players.

This would be the most viable option that's the easiest to implement, and it would at least slow the bleeding of American talent to Canada.

There are a couple of issues with this proposal, however.

Most of the top USHL talents will still likely move over to the CHL. It will not offset the lost Canadian players who moved south to pursue a collegiate career, such as Owen Power, Macklin Celebrini and Adam Fantilli.

More importantly, should the nine American CHL teams, such as the WHL's Everett Silvertips and OHL's Saginaw Spirit, be prevented from adding more players from their country? If the CHL does implement this limit, then maybe there's an exception for the American teams.

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USHL Joins CHL

Then there's the hail mary, which I’d imagine most scouts and fans would want the most: the USHL’s inclusion into the CHL.

This should in theory stop the bleeding entirely, but it would come at a great logistical cost.

How would the CHL handle re-drawing regions and the individual league drafts? As of right now, the WHL has claims over Alaska to Minnesota laterally, while the OHL has from Illinois to New York, and the QMJHL is left with New England.

If the USHL is absorbed into the CHL, it would have its own territory, which naturally would overlap as the OHL and USHL have teams in Michigan, and the USHL has teams as far west as Nebraska.

Furthermore, the leagues would have to decide on how to handle the Memorial Cup, as the current system allows for the champions of each of the three leagues and the host. While it would be simple to replace the host with the USHL champion for a true best-on-best-on-best-on-best tournament, it would not work.

Perhaps an alteration could look like a six-team tournament with the champions from all four leagues, the host city and the U.S. NTDP. Given the program has struggled against the CHL super team at the CHL USA Prospects Challenge, perhaps they’d have a better shot against just regular teams in the tournament.

Does this feel like a long shot given the sheer amount of changes to the rulebooks to allow for the absorption of the USHL while maintaining the health of all four leagues? Absolutely.

However, it appears as though this thought experiment may be closer to fruition than we might think. Andrew Zadnarnowski reported the USHL has trademarked the name “National Junior Hockey League” and abbreviation “NJHL.”

As of right now, Daly has stressed that “there’s some time to see how all of this plays out,” however it’s already clear after one full season since the CHL/NCAA agreement that something will have to give to keep the USHL as a premium destination for American-born players and not be relegated to an afterthought.

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