No team with such a top-heavy roster as the 2025-26 Edmonton Oilers has won the Stanley Cup in the NHL’s salary cap era.
When I say “top heavy,” I’m referring to the cap hit of the top four players — the Core Four — of Stanley Cup winning teams.
I’m not digging into this to whine and moan about how much Edmonton’s superstars are making. Other NHL teams would kill to have Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl or Evan Bouchard and would gladly pay them as much and more than the Oilers are now doing.
But however outstanding Edmonton’s hockey aces are, the fact remains than in the 20 years of the NHL’s salary cap era, no team has won the Cup paying such a high percentage of the annual league salary cap to its Core Four players.
The average cap hit of the Core Four on the twenty Cup-winning teams in the salary cap era, 2006 to 2025, is 40.5 per cent.
This year, however, Edmonton will pay 48.4 per cent of the NHL’s $95.5 million salary cap to four players, starting with the NHL’s highest paid player Leon Draisaitl, 14.7 per cent of the cap at 14 million this year, then Connor McDavid at 13.1 per cent of the cap at $12.5 million, Evan Bouchard at 11.0 per cent of the cap at $10.5 million and Darnell Nurse at 9.7 per cent of the cap at $9.3 million.
When we look at the salary cap percentages being paid to top NHL teams in 2025-26, we see the Oilers way out ahead of every other team at 48.4, no surprise given the top-end talent on the Oilers. Next highest is the New York Rangers at 43.1 per cent. Most NHL teams are close to 40 per cent average for the Core Four that we’ve seen from Stanley Cup winners in the cap era.
Draisaitl makes more than any other top paid player, as does McDavid, Bouchard and Nurse in their own salary tier within the Core Four.
Only six teams with a Core Four making more than 42 per cent of the cap have won the Cup. Only three teams with a Core Four making more than 45 per cent have won the Cup, namely Detroit in 2008, 47.3 per cent, Anaheim in 2007, 47.1 per cent, and Pittsburgh in 2016, 45.2 per cent.
The last six Cup winners have had the following cap percentages for their Core Four: Tampa 2020, 40.0 per cent; Tampa 2021, 43.4 per cent; Colorado 2022, 38.87 per cent; Vegas 2023, 41.5 per cent; Florida 2024, 44.3 per cent; Florida 2025, 42.0 per cent.
Of course, in recent years top NHL teams have become expert at fudging the cap, with players injured at the trade deadline and missing the rest of the regular season on Long Term Injury Reserve (LTIR), allowing their club to use their cap hit to bring in extra talent at the deadline, then utilize both that extra talent and the formerly injured but now recovered player in the playoffs.
This same practice will be allowed in the 2026 playoffs. Can there be any doubt that the eventual Cup winner will see this LTIR scenario (scam?) play out in their favour this year?
Core Four percentages for Top NHL teams 2025-26
Core four
What does all this mean for the Oilers?
Do the Oilers have such talent at that top end and throughout the roster that they can defy this historic fact?
They just might. Draisaitl, McDavid and Bouchard are proven playoff performers and among the very best at their respective positions, if not the best. The Oilers also have players on value contracts, including their highly-paid top trio, who are all worth more than they’re getting paid this coming year, at least according to the calculations of stats expert Dom Luszczyszyn.
Edmonton is an older team now with players who are likely to get banged up and injured as the season progresses. It will be no surprise at all if they have one or two significant injuries by the time of the trade deadline, which will enable the Oilers to legally fill in for those injured players with new acquisitions for the remainder of the regular season. Those new players will also be available during the playoffs.
Whether or not Edmonton’s injured players will be ready is an unknown. But it could well be that due to the timing of injuries and recovery that the Oilers (as well as other contending teams) will be able to ice a roster with a collective cap hit of more than $100 million in the playoffs. This will greatly assist any such team in winning the Cup and will work to negate the high amount any of them pay to their own Core Four.
But Edmonton could also be healthy this year. If that’s the case, they’ll need young and inexpensive players to step up with massive contributions during the regular season and playoffs. Candidates for those kind of performance include rookies Matt Savoie, Noah Philp and Ike Howard and young veterans like Stuart Skinner, Ty Emberson and Vasily Podkolzin.
Edmonton will also need its vets to come through, of course, in particular Nurse, who played his best hockey during the 2024-25 regular season but saw his game collapse, yet again, in the playoffs.
A huge key for the Oilers is for Nurse to bring the strong two-way play he regularly executes in the regular season to the playoff stage. He’s got to step up in the playoffs, not fade away until he’s a major liability to the team, as he’s been all too often in recent playoff seasons.
Can Nurse do that? I see no reason why not. The talent and the will are there, it’s just a matter of him staying healthy and figuring out the right mindset, psychology and tactics for playoff success. My bet is we’ll see the best of Darnell Nurse in the 2026 playoffs. That will be huge for the Oilers.
Of course, it’s a treacherous mountain for any team to climb to win the Stanley Cup. With so many excellent teams and such parity in the NHL, any one of ten teams could easily win the Cup. There are no sure things.
And there’s also no getting around paying top dollar for top talent.
The Oilers are fortunate to have such stars on the team. These brilliant players give Edmonton a good shot at winning the Cup year after year.
What else can a reasonable fan of any NHL team ask for?
Cult of Hockey prospect series 2025
Dmen: Paul Fischer (16th), Nikita Yevseyev (18th), Asher Barnett (19th)
Goalies: Nathaniel Day (17th), Eemil Vinni (20th)
At the Cult of Hockey
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