List of highest-paid NHL players by season

Here are several lists of National Hockey League players' salaries since the 1989–90 NHL season.

This list does not include income from corporate endorsements or salaries before 1988–89.

These figures have been gleaned from certain financial sites dedicated to professional sports, and so may not be perfectly accurate.

This is merely an estimation that, for the most part, does not take into account bonuses and sponsor contracts.

These totals also do not take into account partial seasons played—for which a player would only receive a partial salary—except for the shortened 2004–05 season, which affected every player.

Thus, the listed totals are a sum of the amounts each player was contracted to receive for a full season.

After the 1994–95 NHL season was shortened to 48 games due to a lockout, players earned only about 56% of their predicted salary.

Under the latest NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement, no player could earn more than 20 percent of the team salary cap ($7.8 million).

Salary figures prior to the 1989–90 season are not readily available.

The following table presents a sample of salaries from various seasons; the players listed were not necessarily the highest paid that year.

Although Wayne Gretzky is considered one of the greatest hockey players of all time, and his annual salary was in the top five for eight of his last ten seasons (including five seasons at No. 1), he retired before the end of the 20th century, so his total salaries have long ago fallen off the list of top 20 salary earners of all time.
Martin Brodeur is the highest-paid goaltender of all time, with approximately $82 million earned in salaries alone.
Jaromir Jagr has earned more in salaries than any other hockey player – more than $120 million.
Pavel Bure amassed $56.37 million in his twelve-year career. He would have earned $10 million in 2003–04, but due to injuries, he was forced to retire early, having played his final game around the time of his 32nd birthday.
Newsy Lalonde was earning CAN $ 1,300 during the 1917–18 NHL season , which is equivalent to approximately $25,000 CAD in today's funds.