TVA Sports has just published an article to show how disadvantaged the Edmonton Oilers were compared to the Florida Panthers in the playoffs.
It’s pretty incredible when you think about it, but Matthew Tkachuk’s squad had a major advantage over Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl’s team, as the following quote illustrates well:
“In fact, Florida’s team reportedly iced a $93M lineup-$5M over the $88M salary cap set by the National Hockey League (NHL), according to calculations from the site PuckPedia.
In contrast, the Edmonton Oilers had a total salary of $80.6M for the final game, a difference of nearly $13M.”
- TVA Sports
All the details are in their full article, but in short, the Panthers used the exact same loophole as the Tampa Bay Lightning with Nikita Kucherov and the Vegas Golden Knights with Mark Stone.
The good news is-it’s finally over!
O-V-E-R!
According to the new rules that will be in effect under the new collective bargaining agreement, a lineup like the one the Panthers used in the 2025 Stanley Cup Final will finally be considered illegal!
The Panthers’ lineup in the 2025 Stanley Cup Final is officially ruled illegal by the NHL going forward!
Yes, it was time for a change!
“At least the new collective bargaining agreement, which will come into effect starting with the 2026-2027 season, will no longer allow teams to operate this way. A playoff salary cap will be imposed based on the total salaries of players active in a game.”
- TVA Sports
We also recommend reading PuckPedia’s full article on the subject.
I’m really looking forward to seeing how this plays out in the years to come!
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