EDMONTON – With the chance to lift the Stanley Cup at Rogers Place on Saturday night, the Florida Panthers find themselves with the kind of opportunity money can’t buy.
“It’s been a ride, that’s for sure,” said Kyle Okposo, on the verge of winning his first championship in his 17th NHL season.
“I’m super, super happy to be in this situation, (especially after) having a couple of tough years in Vancouver and being bought out (last summer),” added veteran defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson. “Just being in this position with this organization and this team, with so many special guys in that room, I’m just trying to take it one day at a time, soak it in and have fun.”
Beyond competing for the chance to engrave their names on the rounded silver rims of the Stanley Cup, there’s a little more at stake for the Panthers as they look to shut down the Edmonton Oilers.
Well, $2,758,125 to be exact.
That is the difference between what will be allocated to the winning team and the losing team of this Final from the league’s playoff pool.
How exactly that money is divided and distributed is entirely up to each team’s leadership group, and is not a topic that is apparently up for open discussion. Panthers winger Vladimir Tarasenko, a 12-year NHL veteran and 2019 Stanley Cup winner in St. Louis, said he has “no idea” how the pot is divided.
Sam Reinhart, Florida’s reserve player representative on the NHLPA executive board, also didn’t want to reveal much about the process when asked how it normally works.
“I don’t think that’s really relevant,” Reinhart said. “I think there’s a lot more at stake than a couple of dollars here or there.”
The NHLPA negotiated an increase in the playoff fund when it signed a memorandum of understanding with the NHL in 2020. It currently totals $22 million, and the Panthers could receive $6,539,375 of that amount if they win the Cup Stanley.
2024 NHL Playoff Bracket | Team Sharing |
---|---|
Presidents Trophy Winner | $859,375.00 |
First round losers | $429,687.50 |
Second round losers | $859,375.00 |
Conference final losers | $2,062,500.00 |
Stanley Cup Finalist | $3,781,250.00 |
Stanley Cup Champion | $6,539,375.00 |
That works out to just over $242,000 per player when you factor in the possibility of 27 full shares. That was the number Panthers head coach Paul Maurice cited when he addressed his team in the locker room after they eliminated the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference finals.
“There are 27 of you,” Maurice said that night. “Everyone is important. I love each of you.”
In talking to several former players about playoff money, it became clear that there is no single formula for dividing it. In the past, some teams have awarded partial shares to Black Aces who did not suit up in a game or to rookies who did not spend the entire season on the roster. One former NHL player told The Athletic that he was completely excluded from the pot and received no money despite appearing in a handful of playoff games after his rookie year.
The NHLPA is letting the team’s leadership group handle it as they see fit, according to multiple sources familiar with the process.
What is clear is that the players who win the Stanley Cup will receive a little less than the champions of other North American professional sports leagues.
Kansas City Chiefs players each received $338,000 after winning Super Bowl 58 in February. A full postseason appearance was worth $506,263 when the Texas Rangers won last year’s World Series. And members of the Boston Celtics will claim a little more than $800,000 each if they defeat the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals.
While the playoff windfall is nice for players who haven’t received a paycheck since April, it’s also necessary given the additional expenses that often come with a long stretch of games in the spring due to family and friends want to attend.
One recent Stanley Cup champion estimated he received $150,000 after his team lifted the trophy.
“That only left me about $25,000 in the hole when you take into account all the tickets and flights I had to pay for,” he said.
(Illustration by John Bradford/The Athletic, with photos by Cooper Neill and Joel Auerbach//Keynote USA/Getty Images and iStock)
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