The NWHL released “CapPro” on Tuesday, a Capgeek-like feature of the NWHL website that provides an unprecedented amount of transparency on player salaries. CapPro discloses the salary of every player in the league.
The league had previously announced that the league’s salary cap would be $270,000, averaging out to a mean of $15,000 for each of the team’s 18 salaried players. The league minimum contract is $10,000.
Each team is carrying an additional four players who are not on the 18-player roster. That doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t play though, with all four of the Riveters non-roster players suiting up for Sunday’s scrimmage against the FDNY. Taylor Holze was even a standout in the preseason, earning some power play time by the end of the game.
The launch of CapPro reveals that the league’s highest paid player will be Connecticut Whale defenseman Kelli Stack, who comes in at $25,000. Just under her are Megan Bozek and Meghan Duggan of the Buffalo Beauts who will be at $22,500 each.
With the wealth of talent on Boston, they’re bringing in three players at $22,000 each: Hilary Knight, Brianna Decker and Kacey Bellamy.
The highest paid player for the New York Riveters will be Japanese National Team goaltender Nana Fujimoto, followed by Russian forward Lyudmila Belyakova and Meghan Fardelmann. The deals for Fujimoto and Belyakova, considering they are traveling a great distance to play in the NWHL, makes sense a lot of sense in the context of the team.
With the numbers currently on the site, the Pride and Beauts have maxed out their cap space. The Riveters have $4,500 in cap space remaining and the Whale have $8,000.
In addition to player salary, each player will receive 15% of all sales of jerseys with their nameplate on the back.
The NWHL’s inaugural season kicks off on October 11.
