Comparing Philadelphia Flyers’ Cap Spending to 2025 Playoff Teams

Things get tighter as we move down the lineup. The average middle-six spending for playoff teams is just under 30%, although the Panthers and Oilers were two of the six that exceeded that mark, and every team that did so won at least one series, except the Kings. Three dipped below 20%, as the Lightning made up for their high-priced top line by spending the least on their second and third lines. Jamie Benn’s presence on the Dallas Stars’ fourth line is ballooning their bottom-six figure to nearly 25%, with only their second-round opponent, the Winnipeg Jets, clearing 20%. Additionally, almost half the field spent below 12% in this area, but five of the seven teams that did so were eliminated in the first round.

Things are more balanced on defense as many teams spread their top two blueliners across different pairs. These categories can fluctuate depending on how pairs are utilized. For example, Daily Faceoff lists Jake McCabe and Chris Tanev as the Maple Leafs’ top pair, which accounts for a league-low 7.39% of the cap. However, their “second” pair of Morgan Rielly and Brandon Carlo makes about five percent more, even with a small part of Carlo’s salary retained by the Boston Bruins. That makes the higher end more worth examining, with three teams (the Minnesota Wild, Kings, and Avalanche) exceeding 16%. Colorado, thanks to Cale Makar, leads the way at 18.47%, significantly above the average mark of 13.21%. LA nearly spends as much on its top pair of Drew Doughty and Mikey Anderson as its first line of Andrei Kuzmenko (50% retained), Kopitar, and Adrian Kempe.

Unsurprisingly, two of those teams are also top three in top-four spending (the Ottawa Senators replace the Kings there). The Canadiens stick out like a sore thumb in this category, somehow allocating just 11.87% of their cap to their top-four, in part thanks to Lane Hutson’s spectacular play on his entry-level deal. Bottom-pair spending is practically non-existent; only Vegas is credited with spending over six percent of the cap there, and that’s only because Alex Pietrangelo’s role was reduced due to injury. The Stars managed to get away with putting under two percent of their cap there, although that may have cost them in the Western Conference Final.

Like goaltending performance, there’s a lot of variance in spending between the pipes. The Canadiens and Maple Leafs both lost their starting goaltenders during the playoffs to injury, which influences their figures, not to mention teams like the Oilers and Carolina Hurricanes, who changed their starter throughout their runs. Four teams invest at least 10% of their cap in their starting goaltender. When it works, like it has for Sergei Bobrovsky and the Panthers, there’s nothing better. When it doesn’t, like it did for Connor Hellebuyck and the Winnipeg Jets and Andrei Vasilevskiy and the Tampa Bay Lightning, it’s daunting to overcome.

If that was a lot of numbers in paragraph form, let’s distill things before we look at the Flyers. And since not all playoff teams are created equal, we’ll create a separate category just including the four conference finalists.

How the Flyers Compare

For the Flyers, we’ll examine two different points in time to see how the team’s cap picture is evolving entering Daniel Brière’s third offseason as general manager. First, we’ll compare Philadelphia’s spending at the start of the season with today’s outlook. The cap is taking a sizable leap from $88 to $95.5 million, which is why we’ve been using the percentage of the cap throughout to establish a standard baseline. Here’s the projected 2025-26 Flyers roster being used for this exercise.

Two of these players, Jakob Pelletier and Cam York, are currently restricted free agents. Rather than exclude them, let’s use AFP Analytics’ contract projections to assign an approximate value for them. Pelletier is expected to sign for about $1.1 million per season over two seasons. Their model has two projections for York: a two-year deal with an average annual value of $3.55 million and a five-year contract with a $5.77 million cap hit. Splitting the middle gives a hit of $4.66 million, so we’ll use that as York’s estimated cap charge.

Now, the 2025-26 Flyers still have an entire offseason to make additions and $18.99 million of cap space, which puts them in the middle of the pack in terms of spendable money. But that makes the sizable numbers for the bottom pair spending stand out even more. That’s caused by Rasmus Ristolainen’s $5.1 million contract being parked in that position. While Ristolainen has improved significantly since signing the deal in 2022, pulling the contract out of disaster territory, it still reflects the awkwardness of his fit in Philadelphia. With Travis Sanheim preferring to play the right side and Jamie Drysdale progressing, there’s not much room for Ristolainen to play a large role, even if his play warrants it.

Elsewhere, the Flyers spend below average in basically every other point of comparison. The Flyers were above average in bottom-six spending at the start of the season compared to the eventual final four. The midseason trades of Joel Farabee ($5 million) and Scott Laughton ($3 million, with 50% retained) have driven down that figure. Matvei Michkov’s entry-level deal is part of why the Flyers’ top-line and top-six spending are so low, but that’s pretty common. Ten of 16 playoff teams have at least one member of their top six making $2 million or less, and entry-level deals are typically the easiest way to have cost-controlled talent.

Philadelphia’s spending imbalance up front can be somewhat boiled down to their currently listed second line of Tyson Foerster ($4 million AAV), Noah Cates ($3.75 million), and Bobby Brink ($1.5 million) being priced at a third-line level. Only the Tampa Bay Lightning (Conor Geekie, Nick Paul, and Yanni Gourde with retained salary) and St. Louis Blues (Jake Neighbours, Brayden Schenn, and Jimmy Snuggerud, who made his NHL debut in April) had second lines with a total cap hit of less than $10 million among the 2025 playoff field.

This would be great if the Flyers had committed highway robbery on the trio’s deals, but for as strong as they played together (54.71% expected goal differential and a 30-23 on-ice goals edge per Natural Stat Trick), none have cracked the 45-point threshold. They’re young enough that they could take another step, but only Cates’ contract lasts beyond the 2026-27 season, so it’s not like there’s any long-term spending.

On defense, no team has a cheaper No. 1 blueliner than Travis Sanheim (Winnipeg’s Josh Morrissey has an identical $6.25 million cap hit). Sanheim has shown flashes of true top-level play over the last two seasons, but he shouldn’t be expected to lead Philadelphia’s blue line based on his contract. It will be easier for the Flyers to build around him once Ivan Fedotov’s deal comes off their books at the end of next season. Only Florida’s Vitek Vanecek has a higher cap hit among playoff backups than Fedotov’s $3.275 million mark, which is unjustifiable after Fedotov’s rocky first season in North America.

What This Means

If there’s one obvious thing from examining all this data, it’s that the Flyers are indeed still rebuilding. What these charts don’t show is the team’s seven picks in the first two rounds of this year’s draft or the extra first-round pick they have in 2027 thanks to the Laughton trade. And while the Flyers do have nearly $7 million of dead cap on their books next season, it all disappears after the 2025-26 season. The only exception is Ryan Ellis’ $6.25 million, which the Flyers can place on long-term injured reserve and will also be free of it in two seasons.

This is just another way of reiterating Philadelphia’s need for high-end talent. It’s somewhat reasonable to splurge on depth during a time when you’re focusing on your future, which tends to correspond with young (cheap) players getting opportunities in elevated roles to show what they can do. At some point, though, the future needs to shift. The expiration of Michkov’s ELC following the 2026-27 season will naturally shift things, but that alone won’t mean enough if there aren’t other shifts alongside him.

Paying up for high-end talent in the NHL is almost always a good idea. But it’s hard to find the talent you need to win big just for money alone. That’s the challenge the Flyers face as they hope to be included in the top rows of these charts in future articles like this.