2023-2024 NHL Cap Performance Review

Overview

The NHL has long been dubbed for the parity in the league since the salary cap era has begun do to its' hard cap celing. That has been historically true aside from a few historically bad teams in the last few years. In this, we are going to explore how teams performed relative to the amount they have spent. To do this we are going to use the Cap Hit Predictor to analyze how all the players of every team performed relative to their actual cap hit. To do this we applied the model to all the players in the league that played at least one game for the team they ended their season with. Summed up those projected numbers and then subtracted it from the actual total value of cap hits. By doing this we can get an idea of what a team got out of their players relative to what they actually paid them. You will see teams total cap hits well above what the actual cap is and that is because this is a sum off all the players cap hits that played at least one game for them. The simplest way to think about this is what teams got out of all their players that ended the season with them. The data used in this article was derived from MoneyPuck and CapFriendly.

The Top 3

Nashville

Total Spent: $76,573,643 Performance Value: $92,464,727 Difference: $15,891,084 In his first year as GM Barry Trotz picked up the Predators in a weird spot, do you keep pushing with a group many feel needed a refresh or rebuild? With some slight moves and a coaching change he got tremendous value out of this group while also denying them a U2 concert (hey, it worked). Among the leaders in value of this group was Roman Josi who played at a projected $11.35 million dollar cap hit, well over 2 million from his actual cap hit. But Trotz best work came in the form of Gustav Nyquist who went nuclear in a season where he was finally healthy. Nyquist was a revelation for the Preds playing nearly $4 million over his actual cap hit. When two of your best players are exceeding their contract value at clips like these two your team is bound to have some success. The future outlook will be interesting with their signings this summer as you figure Stamkos and Marchessault are due to regress at some point over those deals, but if they perform as they did last season and they get the same output from Nyquist, Josi, and Saros the Predators could be seriously dangerous this year.

Edmonton

Total Spent: $81,450,000 Performance Value: $95,607,570 Difference: $14,157,570 The story of the Oilers is long told so I won't recycle that on you, but the Oilers have some gret value contracts. Some of these guys are definitely reaping the benefits from playing with McDavid and Draisatl, but you can't argue they are on bad deals given their statistical output. Evan Bouchard was a monster performing nearly $4 million above his deal along with both of their goalies post Jack Campbell drama with Skinner and Pickard performing at $1.9 and $1.6 million above their cap hits. Amongst their other high value players were Adam Henrique, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Zach Hyman all performing at well over a million dollars relative to their cap hits. We all know the drill, it is cup or bust for Edmonton this year or else they will be the talk of the hockey world with Draisatls expiring deal.

Minnesota

Total Spent: $75,165,833 Performance Value: $87,457,124 Difference: $12,291,291 Different from these two teams in the sense that Minnesota did not share the same regular season and playoff success, given they operate almost $15 million under the cap with the buyout money (1 more year of suffering), the fact they have stayed as competitive as they have is extremely impressive. A lot has been made about the deals GM Bill Guerin has made over the past year, but the wild got tremendous value of their two prominant rookies with Brock Faber putting in an effort that was $4 million plus over his actual cap hit and Marco Rossi was north of $2 million over his actual cap hit. Although Mats Zuccarello had a second have scoring slump he still put together an extremely solid season along with Zach Bogosian who was on an extremely team friendly deal and played dependable minutes. This team is in an incredibly interesting spot with prospects knocking on the door, but tons of guys on deals that don't allow them to be moved. the chances the Wild are able to take a big swing in free agency this next summer like all had hoped are probably all but gone.

The Bottom 3

Washington

Total Spent: $98,910,000 Performance Value: $82,336,884 Difference: $-16,573,114 It is clear that the Capitals are still trying to squeeze as much life out of this thing as possible per the moves last season. They were a team that treaded water through the whole season and eventually claimed the 8th eastern conference playoff spot that it felt like no one even wanted. Nicklas Backstrom is certainly juicing this negative value (Everyone that played a game was counted), but they have quite a bit of people underperforming relative to their cap hits. Tom Wilson, Andrew Mangiapane, T.J. Oshie, Alex Ovechkin, Darcy Kuemper, and Rasmus Sandin all round out a list of players who were all over $-1 million and some over $-2 million in actual performance value relative to their cap hit. The signs for the future are not encouraging as this group will continue to age and they also just brought in Pierre Luc-Dubois who performed at $-3.55 million last year relative to his actual $8.5 million dollar cap hit.

Carolina

Total Spent: $77,453,333 Performance Value: $66,684,458 Difference: $-10,768,874 The Hurricanes did not spend a ridiculous amount for their whole roster, but they had a few guys who they need to stay healthy and squeeze a little more out of if they are ever going to get over the hump. Evgeny Kuznetzov was a massive negative by almost four million dollars, but that saga is over. The Hurricanes desperately need a healthy Svechnikov and Freddie Anderson next year as both of them fell millions under their cap hit. Sebastian Aho was solid, but the model projects his output from last season being worth $7.5 mil, falling over $2 million under his actual cap hit of $9.75 million. If the Caps are ever going to get over the hump they desperately need their high end talent to play at their peak.

Columbus

Total Spent: $77,042,499 Performance Value: $67,416,815 Difference: $-9,625,683 The bulk of this story can be told with two names. Johnny Gaudraeu and Patrik Laine. Now Laine is a simple case as he barely played and put anything on the ice for the Jackets last season so he comes in wildly under his $8.7 cap hit. The more concerning one is Johnny Gaudreau, It seems like it was just two summers ago where the Jackets shocked us all and in many ways were the feel good story of the summer for landing Johnny Hockey, but we have not seen the star version of Johnny Hockey. I do think if the kids continue to take a step forward that will help Gaudreau a ton as it seems he needs some star finishing power around him, but for a franchise that desperately wants to take a step forward they need more out of him. There's still plenty of reason for optimism and this fanbase deserves it.

All teams

Full Team List

TEAMCAP HITactual_valuedifference
ANA6032166760450580128913.4
BOS8170500076706381-4998619.4
BUF5031107149662134-648936.7
CAR7745333366684458-10768874.8
CBJ7704249967416815-9625683.9
CGY64101666668265042724837.9
CHI78290833842982666007433.1
COL80555833865105475954714.1
DAL7125250169716963-1535537.9
DET6541916762255611-3163556.3
EDM814500009560757014157570.2
FLA8269916775182069-7517097.7
LAK6725333367137313-116019.6
MIN751658338745712412291291.4
MTL6341500064266507851506.7
NJD8451166678547995-5963671.1
NSH765736439246472715891084.1
NYI8422500084505473280472.7
NYR8646902485319850-1149173.6
OTT9038488181095945-9288936.0
PHI7415483366695373-7459460.3
PIT89488032915869802098948.4
SEA7685119072442275-4408915.3
SJS52698333599946967296363.1
STL83151666848637911712125.4
TBL87862500891559351293435.1
TOR8933633484198715-5137619.1
UTA45574583526714667096882.6
VAN8391527879972746-3942532.4
VGK8573748482939802-2797682.1
WPG7555119175297020-254170.5
WSH9891000082336884-16573115.9

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Date: 2024-07-16

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