2025 NHL team salary cap rankings: #24-17
We’ve reached the start of September, which means NHL training camps are just around the corner. With transactions being few and far between, teams have most of their rosters locked down and more or less know what their salary cap situations look like for the upcoming season.
That means it’s time to officially kick off this season’s salary cap rankings at Daily Faceoff, in which we take a look at all the different aspects of managing and excelling in the salary cap era and rank teams based on how well they do. That’s all done through a somewhat complex process and system, which I have outlined in a summary of its own for your convenience.
This portion of the rankings has typically consisted of one of two types of teams: older teams in the later stages of their championship cycle, which often lack salary flexibility after paying their star players, and younger teams emerging from cap hell and beginning a new era for their franchises. This year is no different, although one or two may find themselves outside of that territory.
24. Columbus Blue Jackets
Contract Rating: 26th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-18th
Dead Cap Space: 16th
Quality of Core: 30th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: t-7th
While this portion of the list is made up of teams either in a rebuild and waiting out the waste of their salary cap or playoff teams finally running their course, the Columbus Blue Jackets are neither. They are a team that should be higher up on this list because the main core of their team is young enough to still be cheap, but already the Blue Jackets are tying up their money in veteran players that probably aren’t worth it. They still have plenty of cap space at the moment, but it is a dangerous game to play when you haven’t even locked up that young core.
If it’s any consolation, the only egregious errors made by this Blue Jackets team that have long-term ramifications are buying high on one good season from Mathieu Olivier, taking Miles Wood’s contract off the hands of the Colorado Avalanche for some reason, and being one of many teams to trick themselves into thinking that Ivan Provorov is a top pair defenseman. Otherwise, the worst offenders are short-term issues like Charlie Coyle, Erik Gudbranson and Elvis Merzlikins, while Sean Monahan and Damon Severson are beginning to grow into their deals. Still, when a team has seven players that you could identify as a future piece and not a single one is signed beyond two years, there is still a lot of uncertainty around Columbus’ salary situation when they haven’t even made the playoffs yet.
23. Winnipeg Jets
Contract Rating: 22nd
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-12th
Dead Cap Space: 17th
Quality of Core: 16th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: t-26th
The Jets find themselves in the lower end of this year’s rankings because they don’t really excel at anything. They’re one of four teams to not rank in the top 10 in any category, and while they only sit in the bottom 10 in one category as well, it’s enough to weigh them down. That was their cap space to skill differential, as despite having just under $4 million in cap space, my model isn’t high on this roster, especially after losing Nikolaj Ehlers.
What really hurts the Jets is that my model still doesn’t like Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor. Their offense relies a bit too much on power play production, and their defensive game is well below replacement level, and those two factors are a recipe for two players perceived as elite talents to be viewed as second and third line players in my model. The newly-signed Neal Pionk is another player who is looked at a lot lower than their perceived value, so his contract is also looked on poorly, while the Jets’ additions of Luke Schenn last trade deadline and Jonathan Toews and Gustav Nyquist this summer hurt their overall standing.
That said, my model likes the Gabriel Vilardi contract, has really grown on Adam Lowry and Josh Morrissey’s contracts over the last three seasons, and also is a fan of Colin Miller, Dylan Samberg and Dylan DeMelo on their blueline. Also, Hellebuyck was rated as the top goalie, so that alone likely means that the Jets will continue to overperform what my model thinks of them.
22. New York Rangers
Contract Rating: 29th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-18th
Dead Cap Space: t-1st
Quality of Core: 12th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 32nd
Like the Jets, my model has never really liked the Rangers roster, although they’ve usually fared well in the actual salary cap rankings. But not this season. While it is very high on Artemi Panarin, Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin, the core players around that in Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider and Jacob Trouba were never rated that highly, as their reliance on power play production and poor play-driving ability hurt them a lot. Two of those three are now gone, but New York basically replaced them by bringing in J.T. Miller (who has a -88 contract rating vs. Kreider’s -89) and Alexis Lafreniere, who’s extension doesn’t have as much value after his past season left some doubt that 2023-24 was an anomaly in an otherwise good, but not great, career.
Another big issue for the Rangers is the lack of really strong value deals. In fact, Fox is the only contract with a positive contract rating that has more than 35 games played in their entire organization, and he’s only a +4. Panarin and Vladislav Gavrikov are also around league average, and while Shesterkin is in the range too, if I adjusted for the difference in salary between him and the rest of the goalies, it’d probably look even worse when he’s paid $3 million more than most of his peers.
On top of that, a lot of these contracts are locked in to no-move/no-trade clauses (which has already caused New York problems), and with this group taking a massive step back, they shouldn’t be as capped out as they are. They’re still trying to salvage this core, but their salary situation has all the makings of a team on the cusp of requiring a blow-up. At the very least, they have no dead cap space for the first time in what feels like forever.
21. New Jersey Devils
Contract Rating: 14th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: 32nd
Dead Cap Space: 15th
Quality of Core: 19th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: t-11th
The Devils usually find themselves in the top 10 of these rankings, not hovering around the bottom 10. In the past couple of seasons, they’ve never really excelled in one area, but were consistently good to great in every category. But they’ve seen one category take a massive hit, and that’s with the number of clauses on their books. Almost all of their new contracts this season had one, including Connor Brown, Evgenii Dadonov, Johnathan Kovacevic and Jake Allen. Along with that, the Devils’ quality of core has taken a hit with Dougie Hamilton and Jonas Siegenthaler’s contracts only having three years left, and adding Brown and Allen to that group.
There is one massive uncertainty with New Jersey’s salary cap situation, and that’s what becomes of Luke Hughes’ next contract. He’s one of the top unsigned restricted free agents remaining, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see his deal make major changes to how the Devils are ranked on this list. They still have some bad deals on their books like Ondrej Palat, Brown and, even at just $1.15 million per year, Kurtis MacDermid, but they’re also still getting great value with Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, Stefan Noesen and Kovacevic, so it could really go either way with a new Luke Hughes contract.
20. Los Angeles Kings
Contract Rating: 4th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-24th
Dead Cap Space: 13th
Quality of Core: 28th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: t-19th
The Kings may be one of the bigger “what ifs” on this list. They have one of the best contract ratings in the league, but it could have been even better if not for one move made this summer. On top of that, they have one of the worst core qualities in the league, largely because this one player weighs down the other three that make up that small group.
That player is Cody Ceci, whose contract came out as the sixth-worst among defensemen according to my model. That and Joel Edmundson’s contract (12th-worst) feel like unforced errors in an otherwise very tidy salary situation.
The Kings actually have the second-best collective contract rating for forwards, and the best among goaltenders, which really makes their fourth-worst rating for defensemen stick out like a sore thumb. They’re getting incredible value from younger players like Quinton Byfield, Alex Turcotte, and Brandt Clarke, as well as older players like Warren Foegele, Andrei Kuzmenko, and Trevor Moore, while also getting fair value for their higher-paid players in Anze Kopitar and Kevin Fiala (not so much for Drew Doughty). It really is impressive how much Ceci and Edmundson’s contracts impact their ranking, but that’s the typical experience with Ken Holland at the helm.
19. Montreal Canadiens
Contract Rating: 20th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: 1st
Dead Cap Space: 18th
Quality of Core: 20th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 28th
The Canadiens have a promising core that is starting to piece things together, earning them a playoff spot last season, so it should be no surprise that they’ve already managed to recover their ranking from the worst spot in 2024 to middle of the pack this season. While they are still weighed down by some bad contracts, Josh Anderson and Patrik Laine’s are the biggest culprits and with little term left, while Juraj Slafkovsky just needs to grow into his a bit more, but has shown the signs of doing so. Otherwise, the Habs have made some big additions over the past year that have really improved their outlook both on the ice and in their cheque books.
Trading for Noah Dobson & Alex Carrier, as well as extending Kaiden Guhle, gives the Canadiens three excellent defensemen on deals considered to be around market value, not to mention Lane Hutson is providing incredible value on his entry-level contract. And then there’s Sam Montembeault’s contract, which looks like a steal at this point after he’s stepped up his ability to that of a top-10 goaltender.
Montreal’s forward contracts are a bit dicey with the aforementioned trio of bad contracts and Kirby Dach & Alex Newhook not panning out like the team had hoped, but the main guys there in Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki have elevated their games to be much closer to their contract value.
The Habs are in a fantastic position right now with their salary. And with their worst contracts off the books in the next couple of seasons, it should get even better.
18. St. Louis Blues
Contract Rating: 27th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-12th
Dead Cap Space: 23rd
Quality of Core: 7th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: t-16th
Like Montreal, the Blues are greatly improved from previous seasons with these rankings, as some of their bad contracts have started to clear out, and the ones that they’re adding are certainly better ones. Gone is Nick Leddy’s contract. Torey Krug’s injury is likely career-ending, and saves the Blues from seeing that one play out. And then their remaining egregious deals in Brayden Schenn and Justin Faulk only have a couple of seasons left.
Colton Parayko’s is still a bit concerning, but his game has improved now that he’s playing with a proper puck-moving defenseman in Cam Fowler, and perhaps his market value has been raised from the 4 Nations Face-Off to the point where his contract is moveable.
A big change to the Blues’ ranking was how Doug Armstrong’s bold move to offer sheet Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg last summer has proven to be an excellent decision, as they rate as the best forward and defenseman contract on St. Louis, among their NHLers. Pius Suter and Nick Bjugstad were great contracts to add to the books this summer, and their trio of “core” forward contracts in Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou and Pavel Buchnevich continues to age well. Armstrong seems to be setting up the incoming GM Alex Steen to be in a great spot, or at the very least a much-improved spot.
17. Buffalo Sabres
Contract Rating: 15th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-2nd
Dead Cap Space: 27th
Quality of Core: 24th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: t-11th
It makes sense that a team that is perpetually stuck in a rebuild and struggling to make the playoffs finds their salary cap situation in the murky middle as well. It also makes sense that the Sabres’ rankings for each category are all over the place. They’ve kept the number of clauses on their team to a minimum, and they seem to have a solid grasp on giving out market value contracts. But then they’ve also compiled plenty of dead cap space, and an otherwise solid core of Tage Thompson, Ryan McLeod, Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power is hampered down by Josh Norris, Mattias Samuelsson and Ukka-Pekka Luukkonen (who my model isn’t sold on after only one strong season in 2023-24).
That’s not to say that the Sabres don’t have bad contracts. On top of Norris, Samuelsson and Luukkonen, the extension to Jordan Greenway was a questionable one, and Bowen Byram’s underlying numbers make his $6.25 million cap hit a gamble. But, they also have plenty of great value deals, like McLeod, Alex Tuch, Connor Timmins, and Michael Kesselring, along with their really cheap deals like Josh Doan, Zach Benson, Jiri Kulich and Devon Levi.
That said, you could even poke a hole in Buffalo’s one strong category, that being the lack of clauses on the team, because it may be less about how much flexibility it allows them to make trades, and more about how much flexibility it allows their players to leave.
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