As the NHL calendar shifts to September and training camp gets closer to starting, it means the offseason is coming to an end and most of the roster movement is out of the way (more on that in a minute).

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.

We started the list last week by looking at the bottom eight teams, so this week we will take a look at the teams that ranked 24th to 17th. Ahead, you will find a combination of teams on their way out of bad cap situations amidst rebuilds or teams on their way into bad cap situations amidst falls from Cup contention. This part of the list has always seen teams pass through only to find themselves on one end of the rankings or the other in the following years, so we’ll have to see what trajectory awaits these eight teams.

As I mentioned in the first edition of the rankings, this will be the first time we’ll update the list as transactions happen, especially with the number of restricted free agents still without contracts. However, nothing has changed since last week, as the only significant move (the Yaroslav Askarov trade) didn’t require any adjustments to any of the categories.

24. Philadelphia Flyers (2023: 23rd)

Good Contract Percentage: 28th (2023: 22nd)
Quality Cheap Deals: t-18th (2023: 25th)
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-2nd (2023: 7th)
Dead Cap Space: 25th (2023: 28th)
Quality of Core: t-20th (2023: 23rd)
Cap Space to Skill Differential: t-25th (2023: 6th)

We’re now a full year into the Philadelphia Flyers‘ new regime of Keith Jones and Daniel Briere, and as far as their salary cap goes, there hasn’t been a lot of improvement. That’s not exactly a bad thing, though, as they’re still in a rebuilding phase and trying to move on from a lot of the salary cap problems that have been an issue for the past few seasons. Joel Farabee and Rasmus Ristolainen highlight the list of overpriced contracts that Chuck Fletcher signed before he was eventually fired, and while the Flyers still need to get most of that mess cleaned up, there are still some bright spots.

The biggest highlight is the Flyers’ avoidance of no-trade and no-move clauses, giving them the flexibility to move on from contracts they need to, just like they did with Ivan Provorov last summer. On top of that, they’re faring somewhat well in terms of quality cheap deals, not including that of Matvei Michkov, who will be making his NHL debut much sooner than expected. Sure, they could improve their good contract percentage, dead cap space or their cap space to skill differential. But those are more the result of Fletcher’s work than Briere’s, especially with Briere needing to use that dead cap space to retain salary on Kevin Hayes’ contract and to buy out Tony DeAngelo and Cam Atkinson. The cap situation is not great, but it will certainly look better down the road as the Flyers continue on their rebuild.

23. San Jose Sharks (2023: 27th)

Good Contract Percentage: 24th (2023: 28th)
Quality Cheap Deals: t-24th (2023: 3rd)
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-5th (2023: 5th)
Dead Cap Space: 30th (2023: 29th)
Quality of Core: t-5th (2023: 23rd)
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 23rd (2023: 27th)

You see that, San Jose Sharks fans? This is what it’s like to get closer and closer to the light at the end of the tunnel. The Sharks had one of the worst salary cap pictures for the better part of the last three to four years, mired in a combination of contracts that were a bit too pricey for quality players (Tomas Hertl, Brent Burns, Erik Karlsson) or just unnecessary overpayments signed long term (Evander Kane, Logan Couture, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Martin Jones). The current setup is still not great, but there’s finally a bit of breathing room as those contracts have been cleared out, and a wave of youth has entered the fold.

The big downside of the Sharks’ current situation is that Mike Grier has had to use up a lot of dead cap space to make it look a bit better. One buyout and three retained salaries is already a lot on the books, but it gets worse when you consider the Sharks don’t even have the flexibility to retain salary at all this season having used up all three retention slots. But, now only Couture and Vlasic remain from the era of salary cap hell, and they only have three and two years left on their deals, meaning they’ll be out of the way when Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith, William Eklund, and the rest of their prospects need to get paid. The only contract of concern long term is the recently signed Tyler Toffoli pact, although my model really likes Toffoli and thus likes the contract as well. I talked last week about how the Detroit Red Wings made their way through salary cap hell only to create a new one, and we’re now reaching the point where Grier and the Sharks need to make sure that they don’t do the same with things starting to look better.

22. Chicago Blackhawks (2023: 29th)

Good Contract Percentage: 22nd (2023: 29th)
Quality Cheap Deals: t-28th (2023: 3rd)
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: 4th (2023: 9th)
Dead Cap Space: 21st (2023: 30th)
Quality of Core: 14th (2023: 32nd)
Cap Space to Skill Differential: t-21st (2023: 19th)

Much like the Sharks, the Chicago Blackhawks are a team that did not rank favorably last season on this list but have seen some improvement this year. You would think that was because Connor Bedard and the young up-and-comers give the Blackhawks quality players on cheap deals, but that’s actually the only category that has taken a steep decline. That sharp drop is largely due to either moving on from quality cheap deals that they had last year, seeing those players graduate to contracts above $1 million, or players who weren’t considered replacement level last year were this year.

Instead, the Blackhawks see improvement in the quality of their core because it’s no longer just Seth Jones that qualifies for it. While the model likes him a bit more now as a second-pair defenseman (who’s still on a bad contract), that alone wouldn’t have helped, so the extension of Alex Vlasic and the signing of Tyler Bertuzzi in free agency boost that part of Chicago’s cap picture. They’ve also been excellent at not handing out NTC/NMCs too often. Other than that, it’s still a middling situation that they find themselves in, made worse with some of the contracts that they signed for this season, particularly Alec Martinez, Petr Mrazek, Nick Foligno, Teuvo Teravainen, Patrick Maroon and Jason Dickinson.

21. Columbus Blue Jackets (2023: 22nd)

Good Contract Percentage: 27th (2023: 30th)
Quality Cheap Deals: t-18th (2023: 9th)
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-14th (2023: 17th)
Dead Cap Space: 23rd (2023: 15th)
Quality of Core: t-13th (2023: 14th)
Cap Space to Skill Differential: t-15th (2023: 24th)

I wrote about how terrible this Columbus Blue Jackets team was on the ice on Wednesday, and today, I’m here to tell you that it’s not all that much better on their cap sheet, either. They did move up ever so slightly overall, but in the grand scheme of things, they didn’t change too much with their cap management. Out goes Patrik Laine’s bad contract, in comes Sean Monahan’s cheaper but longer deal from free agency. The model also hasn’t loved the signings that Columbus has made with their younger stars like Kirill Marchenko, Cole Sillinger and Kent Johnson, but that’s largely due to the players failing to make a notable impression at the NHL level thus far.

Columbus’ big improvement this year was their cap space to skill differential, but that definitely has more to do with the former aspect of that category than the latter. In fact, they ranked fourth worst among all teams this season, the exact same as they did last year, so the only way they could have improved there was by having more cap space. They also still fare well with limiting the NTC/NMCs and have a good quality of core. While they have seen the number of quality cheap deals go down with players like Marchenko and Sillinger graduating to bigger contracts. That’s also a category that isn’t necessarily worrisome yet. The Blue Jackets’ true struggles lie in their good contract percentage and dead cap space, although the latter is only an issue because they tried to help with the former. All in all, it’s not pretty, but with Don Waddell now at the helm, it’s possible that we could see it get better over the next few years.

20. Washington Capitals (2023: 19th)

Good Contract Percentage: 15th (2023: 18th)
Quality Cheap Deals: t-11th (2023: 3rd)
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-14th (2023: 20th)
Dead Cap Space: 18th (2023: 7th)
Quality of Core: t-20th (2023: 28th)
Cap Space to Skill Differential: t-25th (2023: 27th)

There’s clinging on to the dying window of a Stanley Cup win from several years ago, and then there’s what the Washington Capitals seem to be doing. They’ve certainly done a better job of infusing youth into the older core than the other aging team in the Metropolitan Division with a superstar, the Pittsburgh Penguins, but the Caps are still hanging on to some players who are well past their prime. They seem to be more concerned about getting Alex Ovechkin the all-time goal scoring record than actually being a Cup contender, but that doesn’t fully excuse the situation they’ve put themselves in right now.

In fact, it’s a lot of the Caps’ old guard that plays a role in holding back what’s otherwise a good collection of contracts. Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, T.J. Oshie and John Carlson’s long-standing deals and Tom Wilson’s new extension all grade out poorly at the current stages of their careers, and the surprising addition of Pierre-Luc Dubois only makes it worse. That’s played a big role in Washington using up a lot of salary cap space for an otherwise flawed roster, which is really the team’s only true problem. They have a solid young group that are either on cheap deals or pricier contracts that will age well in the long run, none of that younger group have any NTC/NMCs, and the only dead cap space they have to deal with is bonus overages. Basically, if you remove those five to six players from the Caps’ salary cap picture, it looks a lot better, but they need a fair amount of improvement in the meantime. Maybe that’s why they bought CapFriendly…

19. Tampa Bay Lightning (2023: 18th)

Good Contract Percentage: 26th (2023: 21st)
Quality Cheap Deals: t-7th (2023: 16th)
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-24th (2023: 25th)
Dead Cap Space: t-1st (2023: 10th)
Quality of Core: t-16th (2023: 9th)
Cap Space to Skill Differential: t-27th (2023: 21st)

Tampa Bay Lighting fans, welcome to the worst part of Stanley Cup contention: when your team decides that they’re going to focus more on keeping certain pieces of the core together at the expense of keeping that contending window open for as long as possible. In Tampa’s case, that also included bringing one back in Ryan McDonagh, a puzzling move considering that his game has taken a step back and he still has two more years left on his contract. That said, the Lightning have been a bit more cutthroat than most teams in this situation, moving on from Mikhail Sergachev to make room for McDonagh, and also letting Steven Stamkos go to lock up Jake Guentzel long-term in a move that makes sense on paper but just felt like a weird line to draw in terms of loyalty.

However, the Lightning have doubled down on their aging core, and it’s cost them in certain aspects of their cap picture. They have a plethora of contracts that have started to age poorly (even from the likes of Andrei Vasilevskiy and Victor Hedman), have most of those core players locked into NTC/NMCs, and the quality of Tampa’s core and how it relates to their cap space doesn’t give them much room to work with. They’re still one of the best teams at finding cheap depth to build around that core, but they are no longer one of the best teams in the league, as seen by back-to-back first-round exits with a combined three wins.

18. Edmonton Oilers (2023: 32nd)

Good Contract Percentage: 6th (2023: 17th)
Quality Cheap Deals: t-31st (2023: 25th)
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-9th (2023: 14th)
Dead Cap Space: 29th (2023: 22nd)
Quality of Core: t-8th (2023: 27th)
Cap Space to Skill Differential: t-16th (2023: 31st)

The Edmonton Oilers have made headlines in the past for how low they’ve fared in my cap rankings since I started the series here at Daily Faceoff, finishing 31st in 2022 and 32nd in 2023. This year, Edmonton has made significant strides and almost managed to climb up to the top half of the league. They still struggle in some areas, such as finding cheap depth options to surround their star-studded core or dealing with a ton of dead cap space thanks to two buyouts and $3.55 million in bonus overages, but it’s looking much better as the team comes off a Stanley Cup Final appearance.

The Oilers’ biggest highlight is their good contract percentage, as their only contracts that are egregiously bad belong to Evander Kane, Darnell Nurse and, to a much lesser extent, Josh Brown. There are a couple of other suspect deals, but they mostly fall victim to the pickiness of the model, particularly its favorite defensive liability, Leon Draisaitl. Other than that, Edmonton has done an excellent job of signing players to good contracts and has even established a strong core that doesn’t even include Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, or Evan Bouchard right now (based on the model’s definition of “core” as players with at least four years left on their deals). It will be interesting to see how the Oilers’ cap picture looks once those three have signed their new contracts, as that put them back in the “core” bucket and will massively swing their placement in the future in one way or another.

17. Ottawa Senators (2023: 28th)

Good Contract Percentage: 21st (2023: 23rd)
Quality Cheap Deals: 6th (2023: 9th)
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-9th (2023: 9th)
Dead Cap Space: 11th (2023: 26th)
Quality of Core: 19th (2023: 26th)
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 24th (2023: 24th)

The Ottawa Senators are another team that has generally hovered around the bottom of these rankings, largely in part due to my model not being 100% sold on committing long-term to their young core at the price tags that they did. It still doesn’t love the Josh Norris and Drake Batherson contracts, and Tim Stutzle’s inconsistent play has made it hard to live up to his salary, but it loves the contracts for Brady Tkachuk and Jake Sanderson. The Sens’ good contract percentage hasn’t necessarily improved over the years, but it’s the other aspects of their salary cap picture that see them move up 11 places this season.

Ottawa’s biggest improvement is their dead cap space, as they’ve now seen three buyouts come to an end, and the one remaining one for Colin White currently has a -$625,000 buyout cap hit. Joonas Korpisalo will be on the books for four more seasons with $1 million in retained salary, but it’s definitely an improvement over having to deal with the entire contract. Korpisalo’s departure also improved the quality of the Sens’ core, and Batherson and Artem Zub’s contracts no longer qualify for that category. Otherwise, Ottawa has remained stagnant, but it’s still a much-needed improvement for a team that is desperate to end its seven-season playoff drought.

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