NHL Reveals Salary Cap, Floor, Maximum Salary for 2026-27 Regular Season

The NHL salary cap is rising above $100 million for the first time in league history.

The cap ceiling will rise $8.5 million to $104 million ahead of the 2026-27 season, per Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman.

Players, who can make up to 20 percent of the cap, will be able to earn a new maximum salary of $20.8 million per year.

The cap floor rose $6.3 million to $76.9 million, per Friedman. The 2025-26 salary cap was $95.5 million above a floor of $70.6 million.

The numbers for 2026-27 match the projections initially released by the NHL and NHL Players' Association in January 2025.

The NHL is anticipating another $9.5 million cap increase ahead of the 2027-28 season. That will bring the cap ceiling to $113.5 million over a floor of $83.9 million.

The Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights are the only NHL teams currently projected by PuckPedia to exceed the 2026-27 cap.

There are 10 teams that will need to spend this offseason order to meet the higher cap floor, per PuckPedia.

These include the Seattle Kraken, Nashville Predators, Detroit Red Wings, Washington Capitals, Philadelphia Flyers, Columbus Blue Jackets, Chicago Blackhawks, Anaheim Ducks, San Jose Sharks and Pittsburgh Penguins.

This marks a period of sustained increase for the NHL cap, which will have risen by $20.5 million over a span of four seasons.

That followed a period of stagnation between 2019 and 2021, during which the cap stayed at $81.5 million for three straight seasons amid the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

After two years of $1 million cap increases following the pandemic, the NHL is now back to significant cap increases between seasons.

Clubs that saw teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs hurt by committing to major contracts just before cap stagnation could now potentially change their approach to roster building going forward.

The Minnesota Wild's Kirill Kaprizov is set to earn the most money in the NHL with a $17 million cap hit next season, but that number could be dwarfed once stars like the Leafs' Auston Matthews and the Edmonton Oilers' Connor McDavid become extension-eligible next summer.