Exploring how the Edmonton Oilers are using their salary cap space in the 2025–26 season

The Edmonton Oilers enter the 2025–26 season again as the second-best team in the league, having fallen again to the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final. The team has re-tooled a little, but broadly walks in with a similar core to last year.

Here’s how the Edmonton Oilers’ salary cap space is being divided between the forwards, defence, and goalies this year, relative to the rest of the league. All data is according to Puckpedia.

Edmonton Oilers salary cap usage 2025–26

Overall, the Oilers are the top spending team in the league that is currently under the salary cap. With just $226K remaining in open space, the team is right up against the cap. Both the Vegas Golden Knights and Florida Panthers are ahead of them and over the cap. However, they will both have players opening the season on the IR, which will make them compliant on opening night.

Here is how the team is using their nearly $95.5M in salary cap space:

Forwards using up almost half of the cap

Despite having two of the best forwards in the league, the Oilers go into the season spending $55.14M on their group up front. The vast majority of that is on Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, with the two combining for $26.5M—nearly half the total spend.

The other two forwards taking up a good amount of room are Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, both of whom earn over $5M per year. Unlike in previous years, the Oilers have seven players earning less than $2M, including Matthew Savoie and newly acquired Ike Howard, who are both on entry-level deals.

The Oilers sit 11th in the league in terms of how much they spend on their forward group, which is exactly in line with a high-octane cup contender. The Panthers and Golden Knights both spend the most league-wide, followed by the Toronto Maple Leafs and Dallas Stars. All of these teams spend more than $60M on their forwards. Interestingly, the Calgary Flames spend more than the Oilers up front, by about $3M. This is largely because of the boat anchor contract of Jonathan Huberdeau, which is the worst contract in the league.

A high amount on defence

Interestingly, the Oilers are actually one of the highest spending teams on defence in the league, putting $33.99M towards this group. Only the Columbus Blue Jackets, Buffalo Sabres, and league-leading Washington Capitals spend more on their bluelines.

Just like up front, this group is carried by Darnell Nurse and Evan Bouchard, who collectively make nearly $20M. However, the final year of Mattias Ekholm’s contract does add an additional $6M to that.

The Oilers have a lot of question marks on defence after this season, with Jake Walman, Brett Kulak, and Troy Stetcher joining Ekholm as UFAs next summer.

Not much towards goaltending

Unsurprisingly, the Oilers actually spend the second least in the league in net, with just $3.6M allocated to Stuart Skinner and Cal Pickard. They technically have Jack Campbell’s buyout still on the books, but that counts as a buyout, not as a goalie.

This was an area that the Oilers were expected to work on this summer. Instead, they opted to go into the season with the same two netminders as they ended last season. This is going to be the biggest question mark for the team as the season goes on. If their goalies work, the team could win it all. But if not, they could lose earlier in the postseason and risk losing McDavid with them.

Only the Calgary Flames spend less than them, with Dustin Wolf and likely Ivan Prosvetov in net for them.

Edmonton Oilers salary cap space remaining

With virtually zero space left under the cap, this is likely the roster with which the Oilers will enter the season. Even with Hyman likely going on LTIR to start the year, he is expected back in November, not allowing the Oilers to add players in his absence.

This is going to be a big year for the team. Fingers crossed, third time’s the charm.