EDMONTON — With a 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 journey, that’s for sure,” said Kyle Okposo, on the verge of his first championship in his 17th NHL season.
“I’m just super, super happy to be in this situation, (especially after) having a couple of rough years in Vancouver and getting bought out (last summer),” added veteran defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson. “Just to be in this position with this organization and this team, so many special guys in that room, I’m just trying to take one day at a time, soak it in and have fun with it.”
Beyond competing for the chance to have their names engraved in the rounded silver edges of the Stanley Cup, there is a little bit more at stake for the Panthers as they look to close out the Edmonton Oilers.
Well, $2,758,125 to be exact.
That’s the difference between what the winning team and losing team of this Final will be allotted from the league’s playoff fund.
How exactly that money is divided and dispersed is entirely up to each team’s leadership group — and it’s not a topic seemingly 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 gets split up.
Sam Reinhart, Florida’s alternate player rep on the NHLPA executive board, wouldn’t divulge much about the process, either, when asked how it typically works.
“I don’t think that’s really relevant,” Reinhart said. “I think there’s a lot more on the line than a couple bucks here or there.”
The NHLPA negotiated to have the playoff fund increased when it signed a memorandum of understanding with the NHL in 2020. It currently sits at $22 million total — with the Panthers in line to receive $6,539,375 of that if they manage to win the Stanley Cup.
| 2024 NHL playoff pool | Team Share |
|---|---|
|
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 accounting for 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 final.
“There’s 27 of you,” Maurice said that night. “Everybody is important. I love every one of you.”
In speaking with multiple former players about the playoff money, it became clear that there is no one formula used to divide it up. Some teams in the past have awarded partial shares to Black Aces who didn’t dress in a game or to rookies who didn’t spend the entire season on the roster. One former NHLer told The Athletic that he was cut out of the pot entirely and received no money despite appearing in a handful of playoff games following his rookie year.
The NHLPA lets the team’s leadership group handle it how they see fit, according to multiple sources familiar with the process.
What’s clear is that players who win the Stanley Cup are in line to receive a little less than champions in the other North American pro sports leagues.
Kansas City Chiefs players received $338,000 apiece after winning Super Bowl 58 in February. A full postseason share 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 finish off the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals.
As much as the playoff windfall is nice for players who haven’t received a paycheck since April, it’s also necessary given the extra expenses that often come with a lengthy run of games in the spring due to family and friends wanting to be in attendance.
One recent Stanley Cup champion estimated that he received $150,000 after his team hoisted the trophy.
“That only left me about $25,000 in the hole when you account for all of the tickets and flights I had to pay for,” he said.
(Illustration by John Bradford / The Athletic, with photos from Cooper Neill and Joel Auerbach / Getty Images and iStock)