- Daily Faceoff ranks the Oilers 29th in its 2026 NHL salary cap rankings, down from 13th
- Vancouver took the biggest tumble of the bottom eight, sliding from ninth to 30th
- Read below for the full bottom eight and the contracts weighing each team down
Edmonton owns one of the four worst cap sheets in hockey.
Scott Maxwell published the first installment of Daily Faceoff’s 2026 salary cap rankings on Friday, and the Oilers came in 29th out of 32. They sat 13th a year ago.
His model grades every contract against what the player is actually worth, then weighs trade clauses, dead cap space and how much room a team has compared to the quality of its roster. Edmonton lands in the bottom third of nearly every category.
Maxwell was blunt about who put the Oilers there.
“A slow death by a thousand cuts under Stan Bowman, some minor paper cuts and some massive gashes, as he continues to downgrade the depth on his roster while not saving money as a result of it.”
Overpays pile up from there. Trent Frederic, Tristan Jarry and Jake Walman all landed term and money the model does not think they earned, and small deals went to Josh Brown, Colton Dach and Mattias Janmark, players it rates below replacement level. Jarry carries a $5.375 million cap hit through 2027-28 after Edmonton shipped Stuart Skinner and Brett Kulak to Pittsburgh to get him.
Mattias Ekholm and Zach Hyman come out as the rare wins. Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard are now paid what they are worth, which removes the surplus value those deals used to hand the club.
Then there is the part that stings in Edmonton. This is season one of two in which Connor McDavid is playing on a discount, and Maxwell wrote that the Oilers are not maximizing the opportunity.
The bottom eight
| Rank | Team | 2025 Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 32 | New York Islanders | 32 |
| 31 | Chicago Blackhawks | 31 |
| 30 | Vancouver Canucks | 9 |
| 29 | Edmonton Oilers | 13 |
| 28 | San Jose Sharks | 28 |
| 27 | Boston Bruins | 29 |
| 26 | Calgary Flames | 11 |
| 25 | Seattle Kraken | 17 |
Vancouver fell furthest, from ninth all the way to 30th. Brock Boeser, Thatcher Demko, Elias Pettersson, Jake DeBrusk and Filip Chytil all carry term, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s buyout still eats $4.77 million this season before it drops to $2.13 million next year.
Boeser’s seven-year deal is the one with the longest tail:
Analyst Travis Yost argued earlier this week that the Canucks should cash Boeser in while he still has value, which lines up with how the model reads his contract.
Here is the strange part. Seattle, Vancouver and Calgary sat in the top four leaguewide in available cap space when PuckPedia last ran the numbers this month, and all three land in this bottom eight:
Seattle showed $18.4 million on hand and Vancouver $17.8 million, yet both rank near the basement because of what the rest of the sheet is already committed to. Chandler Stephenson and Ryan Lindgren carry the worst contract ratings at their respective positions leaguewide.
The Islanders finished 32nd for the fifth straight edition of these rankings, and Chicago sits 31st with the league’s worst contract rating.
Every other team down here is rebuilding or fading. Edmonton opens camp next month still expecting to win, with McDavid’s cheap years already half spent.
