The NHL is the only one of the big four North American sports leagues with a hard cap.
The 2021-22 playoffs were the first in the salary cap era (2005-06 season) that saw skaters with cap hits over $10MM, Connor McDavid at $12.5MM, and Artemi Panarin at ~$11.64MM, win a best-of-seven playoff series. The 2020-21 playoffs were the first to see any player with a cap hit of over $10MM, Carey Price at $10.5MM, win a best-of-seven playoff series. I do not include the 2020 bubble best-of-five playoff qualifiers as playoff series because if the team lost they did not qualify for the playoffs. Regardless, it's extremely hard to win the NHL without a good salary structure. Let's take a look at the salary structures of the four remaining teams and see why they were able to win at least two playoff rounds, and compare them to the Blue Jackets.
Tampa Bay Lightning
The Lightning have been able to have this success because their top players all signed team-friendly contracts. Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy are worth far more than their $9.5MM cap hits. The same can be said for Steven Stamkos at $8.5MM, Victor Hedman at $7.875MM, and Ryan McDonagh and Brayden Point, both at $6.75MM. This allows them to have players like Ondrej Palat at $5.3MM, Anthony Cirelli and Mikhail Sergachev at $4.8MM, Alex Killorn at $4.45MM, and Erik Cernak at $2.95MM. Patrick Maroon, Cal Foote, Brandon Hagel, Pierre-Éduoard Bellemare, Corey Perry, Ross Colton, and Nick Paul all have cap hits of $1.5MM or lower. When the top players sign team-friendly deals, nearly every player ends up playing above what their cap hit would suggest.
New York Rangers
When the aforementioned Panarin takes up over 14% of the team's salary cap, the players on entry-level contracts (ELC) have to step up. That has certainly been the case for the Rangers, with Adam Fox, Alexis Lafrenière, K'Andre Miller, Kaapo Kakko, and Braden Schneider all having $925k cap hits. Like Tampa, the Rangers have players that have played above their cap hits, such as Chris Kreider at $6.5MM, Igor Shesterkin at ~$5.66MM, Mika Zibanejad at $5.3MM, Ryan Lindgren at $3MM, and Filip Chytil at $2.3MM. I don't count Andrew Copp's $3.64MM cap hit, because the Rangers only absorbed $728k of that after acquiring him from Winnipeg via trade. Nevertheless, he's been a key player in their playoff run thus far.
Colorado Avalanche
Like Tampa, Colorado's best players are performing better than their cap hits would suggest. Mikko Rantanen has the team's largest cap hit at $9.25MM, followed by Cale Makar at $9MM, Gabriel Landeskog at $7MM, and Nathan MacKinnon at $6.3MM. Stars Nazem Kadri and Devon Toews have cap hits of $4.5MM and $4.1MM, respectively. Their supporting cast is filled by Erik Johnson at $6MM, Samuel Girard at $5MM, André Burakovsky at $4.9MM, and J.T. Compher and Darcy Kuemper, both at $3.5MM. They've also received significant contributions with players carrying cap hits of $1MM or less like Bowen Byram, Artturi Lehkonen, Darren Helm, Jack Johnson, and Josh Manson (who like Copp was acquired via trade so his cap hit is just $471.5k).
Edmonton Oilers
Like Panarin, McDavid's $12.5MM cap hit stands out. This Oilers team may be the best example of players playing above their cap hits, and they've needed that, because their backup goaltender, Mikko Koskinen, has a $4.5MM cap hit. Those players include Leon Draisaitl at $8.5MM, Evander Kane at $900k, Darnell Nurse at $5.6MM, Zach Hyman at $5.5MM, and Evan Bouchard, who is on his entry-level deal, at $863.333k. At the end of the day, the Oilers will go as far as McDavid and Draisaitl can take them.
Columbus Blue Jackets
It's difficult to compare the Jackets to the four teams mentioned above because they are in different stages. The four remaining teams were all expected to contend this season, while the Blue Jackets were not, and are still in their retool or rebuild, whatever you'd like to call it. Nevertheless, there are some comparisons to be made. First, with Zach Werenski's ~$9.583MM cap hit and Patrik Laine's potential extension that may match or exceed Werenski's cap hit, the Jackets will rely on their young players on ELCs to contribute. Those players are Cole Sillinger, Kent Johnson, Yegor Chinakov, Corson Ceulemans when he eventually gets called up, and the future draft picks when it's their time to play for the Jackets. Additionally, the Jackets do have a few players signed long-term, such as Boone Jenner at $3.75MM, both Oliver Bjorkstrand and Elvis Merzlikins at $5.4MM, and Sean Kuraly at $2.5MM. This off-season will be massive for the salary structure because of the pending restricted free agents (RFA) like Laine, Jack Roslovic, Adam Boqvist, and Nick Blankenburg. The importance of salary structure cannot be overstated, and this summer could feature several building blocks of that structure for the Blue Jackets.
