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.

Also, there was an update to the cap rankings since the first part was published last week, which has already seen two teams swap from one part to the other. The Columbus Blue Jackets, who were originally 24th, dropped to last week’s list in 25th, while the Toronto Maple Leafs are now in 24th in their place after sitting in 25th last week. So below, you will see a similar blurb for the what you saw with the Maple Leafs last week, while last week’s edition includes a new blurb with the Blue Jackets.

24. Toronto Maple Leafs

Contract Rating: 24^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-28^th
Dead Cap Space: 12^th
Quality of Core: 9^th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 23^rd

Even before I did these salary cap rankings for Daily Faceoff, I’ve worked on this project for the better part of 10 years as a fun experiment for the summer to kill my boredom and satisfy my need for hockey. For a majority of the time doing this, the Maple Leafs have fared well, generally in the top 10. But ever since Kyle Dubas was fired and Brad Treliving has taken the reins, that hasn’t been the case, and this offseason sees them hit a new low.

The biggest issue for the Leafs has been one that’s plagued them for years: they struggle to get players at contracts that are well below their market value. This season, that list is limited to just Matias Maccelli, Jake McCabe, Bobby McMann, Anthony Stolarz and John Tavares, and only McCabe and Tavares are signed beyond this season. They still have more deals that are around market value than below it, but when they don’t have a high-end to balance it out, it hurts their contract rating. That said, the list of bad contracts keeps piling up, with Max Domi, David Kampf, Dakota Joshua, and Morgan Rielly falling into that category, with William Nylander on the bubble.

While I’ll never quite understand Treliving’s love for handing term out to depth players, he’s at least avoided giving them too much term. That means that the Leafs’ core consists of three of their best forwards (Matthew Knies, Nylander and Tavares) and three of their best defensemen (McCabe, Rielly and Chris Tanev). You would want Auston Matthews in that category as well, but Toronto has at least avoided giving big money and term to pieces that shouldn’t belong in that group.

Considering all the cap space they started the summer with and the weak free agent pool they had to work with, they could have easily made things a lot worse. So while Mitch Marner’s departure hurts them both on ice and hinders them on this list, the Leafs have kept the door open for long-term improvement if they’re smart.

23. Winnipeg Jets

Contract Rating: 22^nd
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-12^th
Dead Cap Space: 17^th
Quality of Core: 16^th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 27^th

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: 29^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-18^th
Dead Cap Space: 1^st
Quality of Core: 12^th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 32^nd

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: 14^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: 32^nd
Dead Cap Space: 15^th
Quality of Core: 19^th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 10^th

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. 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: 23^rd

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. Now, spending money isn’t always a great thing depending on how responsible a team is at doing so, and Bill Armstrong has been inconsistent at that, as reflected by them only ranking just inside the top 20.

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.

But 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.

19. Los Angeles Kings

Contract Rating: 4^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-24^th
Dead Cap Space: 13^th
Quality of Core: 27^th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 18^th

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.

18. Montreal Canadiens

Contract Rating: 20^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: 1^st
Dead Cap Space: 18^th
Quality of Core: 20^th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 27^th

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.

17. St. Louis Blues

Contract Rating: 27^th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-12^th
Dead Cap Space: 23^rd
Quality of Core: 7^th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 15^th

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.

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