NHL officials, like players, earn their paychecks for their regular season work. The zebras, though pick up a bonus for working the playoffs.
Referees earn $25,400 per round worked, while linesmen pick up $16,500 per round. Next season, those numbers will increase to $27,000 and $17,250, respectively.
The previous NHLOA CBA which ran through 2014, had referees earning $18,250 per round and linesmen bringing home $12,100 per round. That’s quite a nice raise from those days.
While the full-time playoff officials are set to work the games, they’re not the only officials in the building. One standby official is designated for each playoff game. For deciding games in the first two rounds and throughout the Conference Finals and Stanley Cup Final, each game gets both a referee and a linesman on standby.
Standby officials earn $1000 for referees and $650 for linesmen, with a bump to $2,750 or $1,775, respectively, if they were called into duty and had to work a game.
Not too shabby for being on call and suited up – sans skates – in the officials’ room.
