While the NHL has hyped the “competitive balance” of the salary cap, hockey’s spending gap between the big boys and the budget conscious teams has widened to a record margin, according to analysis by Daily Faceoff with the help of CapFriendly.com.

The Tampa Bay Lightning spent at least $41 million more than the Arizona Coyotes in total player wage expenditure this season, which is the widest gap ever. Prior to this season, the biggest difference between the top spending team and the lowest spending team was $34.1 million – and the average difference over the previous three seasons was $32.9 million.

Those figures includes NHL player salaries, signing bonus money and minor league players on NHL contracts, retained salary transactions, dead cap money and buyouts, and also calculate for the daily change in pay for call-ups and roster movement throughout the season, as computed by CapFriendly. Independent team sources verified the accuracy of the calculations to Daily Faceoff.

In reality, this season’s gulf is much larger because the Coyotes acquired injured players Jakub Voracek, Shea Weber, Andrew Ladd and Bryan Little, and those contracts are all believed to be protected by insurance which would cover 80 percent of the payments.

That large of a gap was not contemplated in the NHL’s salary cap configuration, which was designed to create a mostly level ice surface across the league within specific guardrails.