Ranking the NHL's 7 Worst Salary-Cap Situations for the 2025-26 Season
You would think that with the NHL salary cap jumping to $95.5 million this season that no one around the league would be sweating out their payroll numbers down to the final dollar or two. That wouldn't be the real NHL way now, would it?
Most teams have been able to better use the added space under the cap and give themselves extra breathing room for the new season, but there are a few others who aren't strangers to spending to the limit that haven't gotten enough of living on the edge.
We're going to look at the teams who will head into the season sweating it out against the upper limit of the salary cap and will do their best to make use of Long-Term Injured Reserve when necessary to stay within the parameters of the rules.
7. St. Louis Blues
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Last season, the Blues showed they can be dangerous when they pushed the Winnipeg Jets to seven games in the first round after they stormed into the playoffs with a massive second half performance. It's a good thing they've got that to grow on because running that group back again has them pushing the limit of the cap. As it sits now, they've got around $625,000 in cap space. That said, like a few others, they've got a tough, yet simple, way to add cap space.
Defenseman Torey Krug's ankle injury that's kept him out of action since 2024 may force him into retirement. With his status being dire, it also means his $6.5 million cap hit instantly becomes a candidate to be used for LTIR should the Blues need it.
St. Louis also had a bit of an extra bite put on them by $2.1 million in bonus carryover overage thanks to their younger players performing so well. It's a bit of a first-world problem in hockey to have young guys do so well you get it dinged against you a year later, but while the Blues have an out with possible LTIR, the offer sheets they signed Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg out of Edmonton with proved to make their offseason this year a little bit trickier.
6. New York Rangers
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The Rangers going from Presidents' Trophy winners to being out of the playoffs in one year was enough of a problem to cause a coaching change and for GM Chris Drury to make even more moves in the offseason to shake up the roster. One thing he didn't really do, however, was to make their cap situation a bit easier to deal with.
The Rangers traded Chris Kreider to Anaheim and K'Andre Miller to division rival Carolina, moves that ideally should've freed up about $10 million. However, they made one big move in free agency adding Vladislav Gavrikov for seven years, $49 million ($7 million cap hit) and re-signed Will Cuylle for two years, $7.8 million ($3.9 million cap hit). They also had star goalie Igor Shesterkin's eight-year, $92 million ($11.5 million cap hit) kick in along with defenseman Will Borgen's five-year, $20.5 million extension ($4.1 million cap hit) on top of that and found themselves sitting close to $778,000 away from the cap ceiling.
While that amount can at least make room for a player making the minimum to be squeezed in, it's still not a cozy amount of breathing room. The Rangers are top-heavy at forward and need Shesterkin to be back to his old ways to be a playoff team again, but they're going to need to hold things together health-wise to make Drury's job a little easier to handle, too.
At the very least, Drury showed he'll make any trade that he sees as worth it and clearing salary, even if it's attached to a beloved player, doesn't bother him. We're not going to give him credit just for making trades because we all love deals, but it does make their tightness to the cap not seem as menacing either.
5. Philadelphia Flyers
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One thing we like to say about the Philadelphia Flyers is that they're always interesting. A couple of years ago they made a bold push for the playoffs that no one expected to see them make. Last season, they came crashing back to earth and came away with a high draft pick because of it. This season, they're looking like they could be in the running for another top pick and they're looking at having around $370,000 in cap space before they possibly dig into LTIR.
Although the Flyers are indeed that close to the cap ceiling, that takes into account defenseman Ryan Ellis and his $6.25 million cap hit and considering he hasn't played a game since November 2021and he's got another year left on his contract after this one, the Flyers aren't exactly in much cap trouble at all.
Still, the addition of Trevor Zegras from Anaheim ($5.75 million) via trade, signing Christian Dvorak (one year, $5.4 million) and Dan Vladar (two years, $3.35 million cap hit) along with extensions for Noah Cates (four years, $16 million) and Cam York (five years, $25.75 million) helped juice the Flyers salary up quite a bit and we're unsure if they've improved enough to get them into the playoff discussion.
This cap situation isn't exactly dire, but it is one that gives us a lot of reasons to ask a lot of questions.
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4. Dallas Stars
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The Stars have had a lot of talk swirling around them because of impending RFA Jason Robertson in need of an extension and how sizable that figures to be. Even though that's a next-year-and-beyond problem, it's ever-present for GM Jim Nill now and with Dallas being reportedly $405,000 below the cap ceiling, it almost adds an extra bit of pressure to win the Stanley Cup ASAP.
The years to come are far more interesting for Dallas when it comes to the cap because of Robertson and defenseman Thomas Harley who is also set to be an RFA after the season. Seeing Mikko Rantanen's $12 million per year extension kick in this year helped push the Stars to the upper limit and introduce the "how can they afford these guys" talking points, but how they can navigate this season will be fascinating.
While injuries can open up the possibility of using LTIR, if minor injuries piled up, that would make cap management extremely difficult. Fortunately, they've got good, cheap depth to help work around things, but having just over $400,000 in wiggle room doesn't make it easy. Oddly enough, the $1.43 million in dead cap space from the Ryan Suter buyout is proving to really put a bite on them. Go figure.
3. Edmonton Oilers
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Like many other teams that contend deep into the playoffs for the Stanley Cup, the Oilers are again in a position to be very close to the salary cap ceiling. They're sitting underneath the $95.5 million limit, although they're reportedly under it by around $226,000.
The Oilers were able to clear some cap space over the summer by trading Evander Kane ($5.125 million cap hit) to Vancouver and Viktor Arvidsson ($4 million) to Boston, but massive extensions signed by Leon Draisaitl ($14 million cap hit), Evan Bouchard ($10.5 million) and Trent Frederic ($3.85 million) while adding Andrew Mangiapane ($3.6 million) in free agency virtually canceled that out and then some.
Edmonton will hope rookies Ike Howard and Matt Savoie can jump right into NHL roles and succeed, but if they struggle and the team struggles in general, figuring out how to maneuver things will be tricky, to say the least. And this is all while GM Stan Bowman tries to get Connor McDavid inked to an extension as well. At least Bowman has experience in doing the cap dance from his time with Chicago, not that it makes things any easier to do now.
2. Vegas Golden Knights
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The Golden Knights have been synonymous with pushing the boundaries of the salary cap over the past few seasons. That they were able to take advantage of the salary cap disappearing in the postseason allowed them to make the best use of LTIR to add more talent. While the new NHL CBA will make that a thing of the past, Vegas is sitting near $104 million in salaries ahead of training camp according to the cap sites. That's a superstar player amount of money over the $95.5 million cap!
Unfortunately for the Golden Knights, they'll have a means to get under the cap thanks to Alex Pietrangelo's poor health that won't allow him to play, period. Vegas is more than $7.5 million over the cap, but Pietrangelo's $8.8 million cap hit this season and next will allow them to get under the ceiling.
When it comes to finding solutions to alleviate cap woes, having an elite defenseman's career come into question is one of the worst ways to do it. At 35 years old, Pietrangelo has been a top blue liner throughout his career, but needing to step away from hockey for an indefinite amount of time is rough and that he's unsure he'll be able to come back at all makes it even sadder to see. That said, knowing this was going to happen allowed Vegas to splurge for Mitch Marner in free agency.
If Vegas has even around $1 million in wiggle room after putting Pietrangelo on LTIR officially, that's more than enough for them to make moves, not that they've ever sweat that out in the first place.
1. Florida Panthers
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The two-time defending Stanley Cup champions aren't new to playing it close to the cap, but they aren't accustomed to being this much over the ceiling before the start of the year. The cap sites say they're sitting at around $100 million in salary, and being roughly $4.5 million over the top would normally be a problem for any team.
Instead, the Panthers will be without Matthew Tkachuk after the star winger had surgery to repair the litany of injuries he sustained at the Four Nations Face-Off and played through during their march to the Stanley Cup. While he'll likely miss the first few months of the season, that's plenty of time for Florida to put him on LTIR and use his $9.5 million hit to get under the cap.
It's not the ideal way to buy breathing room, but given how badly Tkachuk wants to play for the United States at the Olympics—and then chase a third straight Stanley Cup—the chance to get his body fixed, rehabbed and back up to speed isn't the worst tradeoff in the world.
If Tkachuk returns by December or January and they've avoided major injuries, they may be forced to bite the cap-clearing trade bullet. That would be a nice yet difficult problem to have in the end.
Cap info via PuckPedia and The Stanley Cap unless otherwise noted.
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