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 is the part of the list where salary cap situations start to look a lot better. While no team’s situation in this portion run an air-tight ship with their cheque books, there is still a lot more to be happy about than to be worried about, which is especially great for the teams either in playoff contention every season or on the cusp of being there.

The only notable change to the previous lists for this week is that the Utah Mammoth have jumped from 20th to 12th, which means they are now on this list. As a result, the Buffalo Sabres, who were originally 16th, slid down a spot, and you can now find their blurb in last week’s edition. Also, after the Toronto Maple Leafs and Columbus Blue Jackets swapped places last week, they’ve swapped again this week and are back in their original spots.

16. Seattle Kraken

Contract Rating: 16^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-28^th
Dead Cap Space: 8^th
Quality of Core: 22^nd
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 4^th

16th is exactly where the Kraken deserve to be. Through four seasons as a franchise, they’ve established themselves as an extremely mediocre team. They’re too good to get good draft picks, and they’re too bad to make the playoffs.

While Seattle doesn’t have a lot of dead cap space on their books, and their roster is paid about what it should be, its core is on the weaker side. They also have a ton of players with clauses, likely a product of playing in a no-tax state and ensuring players that sign to cheaper deals that they won’t be moved to a place where they will be taxed more.

However, Seattle doesn’t flex that “no-tax state” muscle as well as some other teams with that luxury. While they have some great value out of Jared McCann, Jordan Eberle, Tye Kartye, Jamie Oleksiak and Joey Daccord, they’ve also handed out some doozies. Chandler Stephenson’s contract already looks bad after one season, with six more to go, and the new contracts to Ryan Lindgren and Adam Larsson are questionable at best. Then there’s the Philipp Grubauer contract, which somehow hasn’t been bought out yet.

While some of the Kraken’s core looks good with Daccord, Matty Beniers, and even Brandon Montour (who’s worth the cap hit for the time being), it’s spoiled by the aforementioned deals to Stephenson, Lindgren and Larsson.

15. Anaheim Ducks

Contract Rating: 21^st
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-5^th
Dead Cap Space: 24^th
Quality of Core: 10^th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: t-16^th

The Ducks are clearly sick of losing. Now seven seasons into their rebuild, last season saw them get as close as they’ve ever been, but not close enough. So they’ve gone all in with this group and bolstered their lineup with a veteran core, and yet it’s those veterans that hamper their salary cap situation, even though it is improving from previous years.

Perhaps grabbing the castoffs from the paper tiger of Cup contenders that was the New York Rangers wasn’t the best idea, because Chris Kreider and Jacob Trouba are two of those bad contracts in the Ducks’ system, along with the egregious cap hit handed out to Mikael Granlund this summer. The cap hits for Frank Vatrano, Petr Mrazek, and Ville Husso aren’t helping their situation, as well as the $2.5 million in retained salary from Cam Fowler’s contract.

But beyond that, things are much better for Anaheim, especially pertaining to their young core. It’s the likes of Cutter Gauthier, Leo Carlsson, Jackson Lacombe, Olen Zellweger and Pavel Mintyukov that make up the Ducks’ good contracts, and with most of those players still on their entry-level contracts, they aren’t tied down by any clauses and give the Ducks the most cap space in the league.

It also helps the Ducks’ case that none of those bad contracts are signed long-term, with their core made up of just Troy Terry and Lukas Dostal, barring a long-term extension to Mason McTavish.

14. Edmonton Oilers

Contract Rating: 12^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-16^th
Dead Cap Space: 25^th
Quality of Core: 1^st
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 21^st

The Oilers have traditionally never done well in these rankings, having spent the first two seasons in the bottom two spots before finally moving up to 18th last season. They move up a few more spots again this year, and it’s a sign of both the team’s improvement in the wake of back-to-back Cup Final appearances, as well as what happens when Ken Holland isn’t your general manager (just look at what he’s already done to the Los Angeles Kings).

That starts with a strong core quality, which is the best in the league. It may be a bit surprising considering that Darnell Nurse and Trent Frederic qualify for that core, but while their contracts aren’t the best, they are still good players. And then of course Leon Draisaitl, Evan Bouchard, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins put it over the top, even without the help of Connor McDavid.

That also gives the Oilers a strong contract rating, because aside from the aforementioned Nurse and Adam Henrique, most of the worst cap hits are actually just really bad players on cheap deals like Josh Brown and Max Jones. Otherwise, Edmonton has a lot of great value, which includes most of their defense (again, excluding Nurse), Andrew Mangiapane, Zach Hyman, Vasily Podkolzin, Nugent-Hopkins, and yes, both of their goalies.

Really, where Edmonton struggles is with their dead cap space from Jack Campbell’s buyout, and the fact that this roster isn’t quite at the caliber of a Cup contender considering the fact that they’re capped out. Otherwise, they seem set up for success for the future, regardless of what cap hit McDavid comes in at next season.

13. Pittsburgh Penguins

Contract Rating: 8^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-18^th
Dead Cap Space: 14^th
Quality of Core: 32^nd
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 2^nd

Seeing the Penguins this high may surprise some people. After all, they’re set to be a horrible team this season, and contracts like Ryan Graves and Tristan Jarry are some of the worst in the league. But don’t mistaken a bad team for a bad cap situation. Pittsburgh’s is significantly improved from last season, and outside of those two albatross deals, any deal of concern is set to expire within the next couple years.

It should make sense that the Penguins have a league-worst quality of core because they don’t even have a core to begin with. Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson could all be gone within the next few years as they undergo a rebuild and establish a new core, which leaves their only long-term contract being the aforementioned Graves.

But beyond that, Kyle Dubas has put the Penguins in a solid position to build a quality team down the road, or at the very least, they won’t be hindered by their cap situation while doing so. Their only dead cap space is the final year of Jack Johnson’s buyout, and their contract rating is great, and will only improve as they start to move on from the old guard who’s contracts aren’t aging well like Malkin, Letang, & Bryan Rust, as well the cap dumps they brought in for assets like Connor Clifton and Matt Dumba. The team won’t be great, but at least they’ll avoid a situation like the San Jose Sharks where they’re waiting 4-5 years for the waste of the previous core to clear out.

12. Utah Mammoth

Contract Rating: 13^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-12^th
Dead Cap Space: 11^th
Quality of Core: 29^th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: t-7^th

While the Mammoth never had a bad salary cap situation when they were in Arizona, it’s been fantastic for the on-ice product that they’re finally able to spend with new owner Ryan Smith. We saw them flex their financial muscles last season by trading for Mikhail Sergachev, and they did the same this season by adding J.J. Peterka.

The good? The Mammoth have a strong contract rating led by Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz, Logan Cooley, and Barrett Hayton up front, most of their blueliners, and all three goalies on their NHL roster. Utah also isn’t hampered by clauses or dead cap space, setting itself up well for the future, and they’re also not capped out, which is great for a team that isn’t quite in their contention window yet.

But the Mammoth’s cap situation isn’t perfect either. Most of their top players aren’t locked up long term, and they also have quite a few bad contracts that stem from their acquisitions after relocating, including Jack McBain, Brandon Tanev, and Peterka to a lesser extent, although the latter is also due to some uncertainty surrounding the sustainability of his performance last season. My model also doesn’t like Dylan Guenther’s contract, although much like Brock Faber, it’s due to poor underlying numbers and my inability to project how well Guenther will likely grow into his new extension.

11. Calgary Flames

Contract Rating: 18^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-5^th
Dead Cap Space: t-20^th
Quality of Core: 26^th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 3^rd

The Flames are an interesting team to evaluate for their salary cap situation. On one hand, they have a young core that seems to be growing, and they’ve been very smart in investing in that core with excellent contracts handed out to Matt Coronato, Connor Zary and Dustin Wolf this summer. Calgary also doesn’t have a lot of players with clauses, which will come in handy if they aren’t quite as strong as last season and need to sell off some assets, and still have plenty of salary cap space if they are as good and want to add at the deadline.

But then Calgary also still has their fair share of blemishes to deal with. The most obvious one is the Jonathan Huberdeau contract, which still has six years left on it. On top of that, my model doesn’t love the extensions handed out to Yegor Sharangovich and Kevin Bahl, although it’s easy to see both of those improve down the road. And while the Flames do have a good young core locked up long term, that isn’t exactly reflected in their quality of core with those aforementioned contracts weighing it down.

10. Ottawa Senators

Contract Rating: 17^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-5^th
Dead Cap Space: t-20^th
Quality of Core: 15^th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: t-11^th

The Senators finally ended their rebuild and established themselves as a team ready to consistently contend for the playoffs, and soon ready to contend for a Stanley Cup. Their salary cap situation is also well put together at this point in time, which means that it won’t be getting in their way either so long as they play their cards right in the coming years.

The biggest reason for Ottawa’s improved situation is that they’ve got a lot of their core locked up to deals that are around market value like Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stutzle, Jake Sanderson, Thomas Chabot and Linus Ullmark, and while they have a few other contracts that are below market value (Drake Batherson, Dylan Cozens, Fabian Zetterlund), they managed to get rid of the worst culprit that was Josh Norris. That alone will do wonders for them down the road.

Other than that, Ottawa just excels at consistently being fine to good across the board, as they’re the first team we’ve encountered without a single category below 20th. They do have one category right at 20th in their dead cap space, and that will be around for a bit as both Colin White’s buyout and Joonas Korpisalo’s retained salary have three years remaining on them. But $1.875 million isn’t backbreaking, and certainly won’t stop the Senators from continuing to build on last season.

9. Vancouver Canucks

Contract Rating: 7^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-18^th
Dead Cap Space: 28^th
Quality of Core: 4^th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: t-7^th

While the off-ice drama between Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller made the experience of the 2024-25 Canucks unpleasant, there was one positive outcome from it: Vancouver managed to move on from the right contract. It may come as a surprise that Pettersson’s contract is rated well, but my model really likes his game, as even when he struggles to score, his two-way play is still a strong baseline. It also didn’t like the one-dimensional game that Miller provides, so his contract wasn’t rated well. It may not seem like it right now, but the Canucks chose correctly here.

Pettersson’s contract is one of many that make up Vancouver’s core, which reflects really well on their cap situation. Conor Garland and Jake DeBrusk, Marcus Pettersson, Filip Hronek, Thatcher Demko and Kevin Lankinen are all at worst market-value deals, and give the Canucks a lot of stability to build around going forward. Their only long-term contract that is truly a bad one is the one just handed out to Brock Boeser, as his production isn’t quite good enough to compensate for his poor play-driving ability for a $7.25 million cap hit. Evander Kane and Tyler Myer’s contracts also aren’t great ones, but at least they have just one and two years left on them.

Beyond that, Vancouver’s only major blemish is its dead cap space. The $5,479,167 tied up to Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s buyout and Ilya Mikheyev’s retained salary is a hefty chunk, but at least the former will go down by about half in two years and the latter finishes this season. Otherwise, the Canucks are well set up for the future, so long as they can find a way to convince Quinn Hughes to stick around.

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