Ranking every NHL team’s 2026 salary cap situation: #32-25

Aug 28, 2026, 10:30 EDT

Ranking every NHL team’s 2026 salary cap situation: #32-25

Credit: Sergei Belski-Imagn Images

We’ve reached the final days of August, which means NHL training camps are just around the corner. With few transactions occurring these days, teams have most of their rosters locked down and a good idea of what their salary-cap situations will look like for the upcoming season.

That also means it’s time to kick off another year of the salary cap rankings at Daily Faceoff, in which we look at all the different aspects of managing and excelling in the salary-cap era and rank teams based on how well they do. It’s all accomplished through a somewhat complex process and system, which I have outlined in a summary for your convenience.

As is always the case with the bottom quarter of the list, it’s made up of teams who are either in the midst of rebuilding or just beginning their rebuilds, as the carelessness of their salary-cap management forced them into this situation. But, there’s also a couple teams who have contended for the playoffs for many years now and may find themselves at the beginning of their cap nightmares – unless they change their ways.

All contract information comes courtesy of our partners at PuckPedia.

32. New York Islanders

Last Year: 32^nd
Contract Rating: 31^st
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-29^th
Dead Cap Space: 25^th
Quality of Contractual Core: 29^th
Cap Space to Team Quality Differential: t-31^st

Islanders fans must never look forward to these rankings. I’ve done this for five years now, and New York is the only team who has shown up in the bottom quarter each time. It felt like their cap struggles were behind them when Lou Lamoriello and his Jurassic tactics left the organization last summer, but Mathieu Darche hasn’t shown any improvement thus far. In his defense, Lamoriello left him a deep hole to dig out of, but Darche hasn’t helped his own cause, acquiring the Isles’ two worst contracts in Ondrej Palat and Brayden Schenn, and signing another in Jean-Gabriel Pageau.

It’s just bad across the board for the Islanders, as all their categories are in the bottom quarter of the league. Their bad contracts far outweigh the good, with only Matias Maccelli (a one-year “show-me” contract) and Matthew Schaefer (an entry-level contract) ranking as significantly valuable on their NHL roster. So many of New York’s contracts are locked in with clauses. They’ve got a lofty amount of dead cap space courtesy of Schaefer’s performance bonuses. Adam Pelech’s contract dropping to three years left means Mathew Barzal, Bo Horvat and Ilya Sorokin aren’t enough to carry a core also consisting of Pierre Engvall, Scott Mayfield, Ryan Pulock and Alex Romanov, which results in the Isles not having enough cap space to justify the quality of their roster. The future is bright on Long Island with Schaefer and Co., but there’s still plenty to wade through for Darche before this team takes any significant steps.

31. Chicago Blackhawks

Last Year: 31^st
Contract Rating: 32^nd
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-8^th
Dead Cap Space: 31^st
Quality of Contractual Core: 32^nd
Cap Space to Team Quality Differential: t-31^st

Outside of a stint in 21st in 2024, the Blackhawks have also found themselves at the bottom of these rankings every year. Kyle Davidson has overseen the team for all five editions of the cap rankings, and with Chicago consistently at the bottom of this list and the standings, it’s easy to see why many of his moves reeked of desperation to take the next step. This hasn’t translated on paper, with some of the Blackhawks’ worst contracts being ones traded for or signed this summer in Bowen Byram, Jordan Greenway and Patrick Kane. But if Davidson’s on the hot seat, he probably doesn’t care about Chicago’s long-term cap issues.

The Blackhawks are a good example of how my model being descriptive and not predictive doesn’t always benefit younger teams, because Connor Bedard and Frank Nazar’s contracts grade out much worse than they likely will down the road. To be fair, neither player has shown just yet that he’s worthy of his contract, but that’s just as much an issue created by the environment they play in as it is their own deficiencies as players. Chicago’s poor defensive play has impacted many players; my model shows five forwards and four defensemen ranking in the bottom 100 for defensive metrics at their positions. It’s a cycle the Blackhawks keep failing to break out of, and it’s why all three categories impacted by the quality of their players are either the worst or second-worst in the league. Add in all the dead cap space from performance bonuses and Seth Jones’ retained salary, and this is a nightmare situation for Davidson (or whoever gets the job if he’s fired) to navigate.

It’s going to get worse too: Byram’s -93 contract rating drops to a -149, the 17th-worst rating among defensemen, when I factor in his $12.6-million AAV set to kick in next season. Ouch.

30. Vancouver Canucks

Last Year: 9^th
Contract Rating: 27^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-17^th
Dead Cap Space: 29^th
Quality of Contractual Core: 30^th
Cap Space to Team Quality Differential: t-15^th

It shouldn’t be a surprise to see last year’s worst team so far down this list. After all, a lot of things have to go wrong for a team to finish last, and one of those can be their cap space limiting their ability to improve the roster. Recent decisions did not cause these issues for the Canucks. In fact, some of their better contracts are ones recently signed or acquired, like Linus Karlsson, Marco Rossi and Brendan Gallagher (at 50% of his salary). Vancouver’s current conundrum stemmed from the prior two seasons, as the team clung to any last hope of their brief contention window in the 2023-24 season. Whether it’s contracts from the past regime (Brock Boeser, Thatcher Demko and Elias Pettersson), players signed to join the core (Jake DeBrusk) or players acquired in the fallout of the Pettersson-J.T. Miller feud (Filip Chytil and Victor Mancini), there are a lot of problem contracts on the Canucks’ books, and quite a few of them have term attached.

It’s why Vancouver’s contract rating and quality of contractual core rate so poorly. All the aforementioned contracts weigh their contract rating down, especially since my model has finally caught up to Pettersson’s fall-off and views him as a second-line forward. Still, he and Filip Hronek are the only Canucks my model views as worthy of long-term contracts. Even then, it’s because they aren’t viewed as bottom-of-the-lineup players in terms of impact like Boeser and DeBrusk, or as a backup goalie like Kevin Lankinen. Vancouver is also struggling in the dead-cap-space department, largely because of Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s buyout. The cap hit will drop from $4,766,667 to $2,126,667 next season, so if there was ever a year to eat the last of the buyout, it’s this season.

Vancouver’s only saving grace is they’re right where they should be in terms of cap space (second-most in the league) and they’re middle of the pack in terms of clauses given to players (although every player eligible for a clause has one, so they only get away with this because the team is young). It’s going to be a daunting rebuild for incoming-GM Ryan Johnson, and it may take some of these cap problems clearing out to kickstart it.

29. Edmonton Oilers

Last Year: 13^th
Contract Rating: 20^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-26^th
Dead Cap Space: 24^th
Quality of Contractual Core: 24^th
Cap Space to Team Quality Differential: 23^rd

The Oilers were the original “consistent” bad team in these rankings (31st in 2022 and 32nd in 2023) before climbing up the past two years. So what dropped them all the way back down to the bottom four? The resullt of a slow death by a thousand cuts under Stan Bowman, some minor paper cuts and some massive gashes, as he continues to downgrade the depth on his roster while not saving money as a result of it. Whether it’s small contracts handed out to below-replacement-level players (Josh Brown, Colton Dach, Mattias Janmark) or overpaying players for term and money (Trent Frederic, Tristan Jarry, Jake Walman), there aren’t too many wins on Edmonton’s cap sheet. With their elite talents in Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard (and to a much lesser extent, Connor McDavid) now getting paid their worth, it’s hard to find too many bright spots with this team.

It does help that the Oilers’ next-best pieces, Mattias Ekholm and Zach Hyman, are on excellent contracts, as the former defies age while the latter defies the comparables when he first signed his seven-year contract. Those two, along with Frederik Andersen (pre-performance bonuses) and Vasily Podkolzin make up most of Edmonton’s great-value contracts. Otherwise, there’s not a lot going for this team in the salary-cap department. In fact, the struggling contract rating is their best aspect. They have 13 players with clauses, a ton of dead cap space courtesy of Jack Campbell’s buyout (although it drops from $2.6 million to $1.5 million after this season), a low quality of contractual core (thanks to McDavid having two years remaining, and Bouchard having three), and the quality of the Oilers’ roster is considered a bit worse than what they’re paying for it. Considering this is year one of two where McDavid is on a discount to help the team, Edmonton isn’t maximizing their opportunity very well.

28. San Jose Sharks

Last Year: 28^th
Contract Rating: 28^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-12^th
Dead Cap Space: 32^nd
Quality of Contractual Core: 27^th
Cap Space to Team Quality Differential: t-13^th

The Sharks were so close to escaping cap hell. Only five years ago, they had one of the most unenviable financial situations in the league with Brent Burns, Logan Couture, Tomas Hertl, Martin Jones, Evander Kane, Erik Karlsson and Marc-Edouard Vlasic signed for $55,387,500 (although not all at the same time) with plenty of term. Now, all that remains is one more year left of Couture’s (LTIRed) contract, Jones and Vlasic’s buyouts and Karlsson’s retained salary, as well as four more years of $1,387,500 retained salary on Hertl’s contract. With Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith on the final year of their ELCs, and Sam Dickinson and Michael Misa a year away from extension eligibility, the mistakes of the previous regime concluding couldn’t have come at a more perfect time for the Sharks to lock up their young core.

And then San Jose traded for Darnell Nurse and signed Jacob Trouba, allocating $17.5 million of their cap space for the next four years to two inconsistent defensemen in their 30s. Those contracts aren’t the only reason for the Sharks’ salary-cap perpetuity, but they should have learned from the Anaheim Ducks about waiting until after establishing the salary cap picture with your young core before investing long term in veterans. With RFA contracts skyrocketing in price, San Jose needed $18.8 million to sign Celebrini and will likely have to pay eight figures to lock up some of their other young players as well. Those contracts aren’t bad, but they make deals like Nurse, Trouba, Zack Ostapchuk, Alex Wennberg, and even the market value ones like Mason Marchment, Kiefer Sherwood and Tyler Toffoli problematic roadblocks for the Sharks’ cap picture rather than helpful options for their roster. This won’t be a problem this year, but once the young guns get paid, the Sharks are going to feel the consequences.

27. Boston Bruins

Last Year: 29^th
Contract Rating: 26^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-21^st
Dead Cap Space: 15^th
Quality of Contractual Core: 25^th
Cap Space to Team Quality Differential: t-24^th

The Bruins are a classic example of a team who should be in the basement of the cap rankings. They’re clinging to any last hope of contending, carried by their elite talents in David Pastrnak and Jeremy Swayman, and the rest of the team is made up of overpayments from Boston’s attempts to salvage competitiveness. Whether it’s questionable trade gambles in Will Borgen and Casey Mittelstadt; sloppy free agent signings in Tanner Jeannot, Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov; or overoptimistic extensions in Mason Lohrei or Pavel Zacha, the Bruins’ cap sheet contains far too many bad contracts. To make matters worse, there aren’t enough good deals to balance it out, save for their big names paid around their market value and their younger players on six-figure salaries.

A lot of the Bruins’ bad contracts impact them in other areas as well, particularly their quality of contractual core and cap space to team quality differential. While Pastrnak, Swayman, Morgan Geekie, Hampus Lindholm, Charlie McAvoy and JJ Peterka are great players to have long-term, Borgen, Jeannot, Lindholm and Zadorov are also bundled into this group, leaving a mixed core signed for several years. They all have clauses attached to them as well, with the lone exception (Peterka) set to get them when he reaches his UFA year. My model also has Boston spending like a fringe playoff team compared to the rest of the league. While they were a playoff team in the standings last year, their underlying numbers place them more between a playoff team and a lottery team, especially in a loaded Atlantic Division. Aside from their dead cap space, which only includes $615,000 of Brandon Carlo’s retained contract, there isn’t much room for Boston to improve their roster, likely signifying a drop in their competitive window.

26. Calgary Flames

Last Year: 11^th
Contract Rating: 29^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-1^st
Dead Cap Space: 27^th
Quality of Contractual Core: 31^st
Cap Space to Team Quality Differential: t-15^th

You would think a team who has offloaded numerous veterans over the past four years would be in a good cap situation relative to their standing, since no pricey deals are on the books. What hurts the Flames here is that they offloaded many of their pricey, good contracts. In exchange, they intentionally took on some bad contracts, like Jacob Middleton or Ryan Strome, to pump-and-dump down the road. However, it does give the Flames the flexibility to sign younger players to contracts they aren’t worth right now but might be in the coming years. Matt Coronato, Simon Nemec and even Dustin Wolf’s contracts don’t grade out too well by my model right now. But they should all be well worth the money as they get older, which will save Calgary some cap space down the line.

The Flames aren’t perfect, though. Contracts like Kevin Bahl, Yegor Sharangovich and Jonathan Huberdeau don’t look like good investments at this point. That along with the dead cap space from Blake Coleman and Nazem Kadri’s retained salaries and not a lot of true wins on their books makes Calgary look like they’re in a much worse situation than they actually are. But the reality is that they belong here. They’re still in the midst of their rebuild, and are still spending as much as they should. Unlike most teams in this part of the rankings, the Flames don’t have a bleak future because of their currently poor cap situation.

25. Seattle Kraken

Last Year: 17^th
Contract Rating: 23^rd
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-21^st
Dead Cap Space: 12^th
Quality of Contractual Core: 28^th
Cap Space to Team Quality Differential: t-11^th

You mean to tell me the team that has spent most of its existence lingering in the middle of playoff and lottery contention has an unideal cap situation? The Kraken are the NHL’s poster child for mediocrity, and their salary-cap situation more than lives up to that reputation. A team made up of no superstars and a plethora of middle-of-the-lineup-caliber players has to put their money somewhere, and it usually means overpayments are involved. Joey Daccord, Jordan Eberle, Jared McCann and Mackie Samoskevich are well paid, but the Kraken also boast some of the worst contracts in the league. In fact, Chandler Stephenson and Ryan Lindgren have the worst contract ratings at their respective positions, while Philipp Grubauer’s is the third-worst among goalies.

To make matters worse, this isn’t an easy situation for Seattle to get out of. With 11 contracts containing clauses (and another one coming in three years when Matty Beniers approaches his UFA year), the Kraken have to navigate their players’ wants and needs if they want to move on from some of these deals. With one of the league’s worst contractual cores, they’ll have to ride out this storm for a while as well – unless they finally commit to a rebuild. At the very least, buyouts wouldn’t damage their situation too badly if they go that route, as they only have $379,167 in dead cap space from Joe Veleno’s buyout. Still, this is not an easy fix. Then again, neither is the on-ice situation.

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