Hockey Salary Cap Calculator

The NHL salary cap ceiling for the 2025-26 season is $95,500,000, with a cap floor of $70,600,000. All 32 teams must keep their total cap hit between these two figures, though LTIR relief and other adjustments can push a team's effective payroll above the ceiling in certain cases.

Cap space is calculated by subtracting a team's total cap hit — including active contracts, dead cap, and retained incoming salary — from the salary cap ceiling. The formula is: Cap Space = Cap Ceiling − (Total Cap Hit + Dead Cap + Incoming Retained Salary − LTIR Relief).

Dead cap space refers to the cap charge a team carries from contracts that are no longer active on the roster. This includes players who were bought out, players who retired, or retained salary from outgoing trades. Dead cap counts against your cap ceiling even though those players aren't contributing to your team.

Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) is a designation for players injured for 24 or more days and 10 or more games. Teams can receive cap relief roughly equal to the injured player's cap hit, allowing them to sign replacement players. This can technically push a team's total payroll above the hard cap ceiling during the regular season, but LTIR relief is significantly reduced during the playoffs.

An NHL team can have a maximum of 50 players under contract at any one time. Of those, no more than 23 players can be on the active NHL roster on any given day. The remaining contracted players are typically on AHL or ECHL affiliates.

When a team trades a player, they can retain up to 50% of that player's cap hit, which stays on their books. Each NHL team is limited to retaining salary on a maximum of 3 players at any one time. This limit is tracked by 'retained salary slots used' in our calculator.

A team can appear over the salary cap due to LTIR relief being applied — the LTIR-eligible player's cap hit is still counted, but the relief offsets it for spending purposes. Additionally, during the off-season roster construction period, teams may temporarily exceed the cap while they work through buyouts, waivers, or final roster cuts before the season begins.

If a team finishes a season below the cap floor, they must pay the difference directly to their players as a pool bonus. Teams are rarely penalized for being below the floor during the season, but must be compliant by the last day of the regular season. This calculator shows your 'Space Above Cap Floor' so you can see how close you are to that minimum threshold.