The NHL remains one of the only major sports leagues who compete with a hard salary cap for all their teams. The salary cap last season was frozen at $81,500,000 due to the lost revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yesterday the final salary cap expenditures were revealed for all 32-teams and unfortunately for 14 of those teams, they will incur a cap punishment for next season after exceeding this year's cap.
The punishments are due to teams not having available cap space to pay contract bonuses that players have earned throughout the year. Leading the list are two Canadian teams with the Vancouver Canucks ($1,250,000) and the Montreal Canadiens ($1,132,500). The list of 14 teams also includes 9 playoff teams (Carolina Hurricanes, Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, Edmonton Oilers, Florida Panthers, Los Angeles Kings, St. Louis Blues, Toronto Maple Leafs and Washington Capitals).
1. Vancouver Canucks: $1,250,000
2. Montreal Canadiens: $1,132,500
3. St. Louis Blues: $1,000,000
4. Edmonton Oilers: $896,000
5. Dallas Stars: $675,000
6. Los Angeles Kings: $637,500
7. Florida Panthers: $637,500
8. Philadelphia Flyers: $295,000
9. New York Islanders: $245,796
10. Chicago Blackhawks: $237,500
11. Toronto Maple Leafs: $212,500
12. Carolina Hurricanes: $112,500
13. Washington Capitals: $100,000
14. Colorado Avalanche: $25,000
