Teams with top-heavy cap hits

This is a great analysis showing cap distribution among recent Cup winners, as well as looking at cap hits of all teams in terms of their top contract %: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5672621/2024/08/02/nhl-salary-cap-core-players?source=user-shared-article

For those who cannot open the link:

Since 2016, all Cup winners have basically had their top 3-4 players command 35-40% of the team cap. Exception being the 2019 Blues, who only had two top contracts equaling 14 mil (19% of total). Perhaps more tangible to me is that each of these 'top' contracts equal around ~11% of the total cap for a team.

Currently, there are 7 teams that each have 5 contracts, each above $7 mil/year, for which their total cap hits for 5 players range from 61.5% to 46%. Those teams are Toronto, NYR, Florida, Tampa, New Jersey, and Ottawa. Colorado would also be on this list if Landeskog returns.

The Wild don't even show up in the top 16. There are three reasons:

1. We have stupidly good long term value contracts for two of our best forwards in Boldy (7 mil/yr) and Ek (5.25 /yr). Kaprizov understandably is our highest paid player at 9 million. https://puckpedia.com/team/minnesota-wild

2. Spurgeon has been out (7.58 mil/yr), and Faber's 8.5 /yr doesn't kick in for another season.

3. We lack the current star power to justify top line $ for a forward.

Kap, Boldy, Faber (starting 2025), and Spurgeon will equal ~1/3 of our cap. In terms of our 'core,' it seems obvious to me that re-signing Kap (should command around 12 /yr), plus Boldy, Faber, and one more guy would be an excellent elite core that would 'fit' the style and metrics of other Cup competitors and built teams.

Personally, I think that guy is Yurov. I'm so sure of him, that my worst case for the guy is to still be a quality top 6 player, who, along with Buium and Wallstedt and the above guys, make a real quality top 6.