| Benn, Jamie »
$5.250MM Dallas |
Seguin, Tyler »
$5.750MM Dallas |
Oshie, T.J. »
$4.175MM St. Louis |
| Kane, Evander »
$5.250MM Winnipeg |
Tavares, John »
$5.5MM New York Islanders |
Van Riemsdyk, J. »
$4.25MM Toronto |
| Boyes, Brad »
$2.625MM Florida |
Turris, Kyle »
$3.5MM Ottawa |
Stempniak, Lee »
$900,000 New York Rangers |
| Roussel, Antoine »
$2MM Dallas |
Goc, Marcel »
$1.2MM Pittsburgh |
Moss, David »
$800,000 Arizona |
| Keith, Duncan »
$5.5MM Chicago |
E-Larsson, O. »
$5.5MM Arizona |
| McDonagh, Ryan »
$4.7MM New York Rangers |
Shattenkirk, K. »
$4.25MM St. Louis |
| Gilbert, Tom »
$2.8MM Montreal |
Volchenkov, Anton »
$1MM Nashville |
| Neuvirth, Michal »
$2.5MM Buffalo |
| Lack, Eddie »
$1.150MM Vancouver |
I thought, as a corollary to last week’s All Bad Contracts Team post, I would take a stab at the best contracts.
Rules:
- No ELCs. Otherwise it would be too easy to stick half the top five picks from the last five years in a chart and call it a day.
- I still adhered to the salary cap. This was especially a challenge without ELCs, and explains why I had to leave off guys like David Backes and Johan Franzen, who would be improvements over, like, David Moss. I also think that Erik Karlsson has a great contract, but I was trying to find an extra million, so I picked Ekman-Larsson at a million less.
- The contact has to represent value. For example, I think Duchene is totally worth $6MM a year, and he’s a pretty good number one center. But I also think he’s being paid fairly.
- I tried not to include too many deals where the player received what was perceived to be value at the time, and seems low by today’s standards. Were Sidney Crosby up for a new contract now, he’d get Kane / Toews money. But he was only paid slightly below market value at the time.
- Goaltending is a bit of a mindfuck. In the last few years, starting goaltenders have been getting paid. Rask, Quick, and Crawford are all going to take up about 10% of your cap right away. I’ve long been a proponent of affordable goalies, given that it’s a crapshoot of a position. So, with that in mind, Eddie Lack had pretty good numbers last year, and Neuvirth is a league average goalie making average money. I also considered Anderson at just over $3MM, Jonas Hiller at $4.5MM, and the biggest mindfuck of all, Luongo at only $4.5MM.
These guys in total come in just under the cap at $68.6MM.
Omissions? Protestations? Hit the comments.
Welcome To Your Karlsson Years 
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Nik Hjalmarsson’s $4.1/5 years should maybe have had a look.. he’s faced the toughest competition and zone starts for the Hawks the last two years and had a career season in terms of points (admittedly the relative few for a defensive defenseman).. although it was funny how he had more points than Briere & Penner halfway through the season
That’s true. He’s been really solid for the Hawks. Do you think he’s underpaid, though?
sort of , he took a big discount to stay in Chicago compared to what he’d have got as a UFA. His exact words were “I already make enough money. I like it here”
Which is exactly where all intelligent Hawks fans fell in love with him. Hjammer rules.
Yeah, that’s not a big raise on his last contract. Though I guess it’s worth noting that his love for Chicago didn’t stop him from signing an offer sheet from San Jose 🙂
he wasn’t adored back then.. Brian Campbell was still the man in his position. And yes, a lot of Hawks fans gave up on him when he struggled the year after “WE HAD TO GET RIDZ OF NIEMIEI BECOS OFF JARLMASSON” (Blackhawks Meatball Voice, there) But then he became a beast. And now a very inexpensive beast.
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Tavares 2nd line center to Seguin? Really?
I guess I was mostly going by price point. He’s cheaper.
Sounds mega homerish but if they hate then let em hate and watch the money pile up: I would definitely put Erik Karlsson in place of Oliver E-L. That O.E.L. contract is great but for just 1 million dollars more (or two easy payments of $500, 000) you can have EK who can put up nearly 30 points more in a season (even recovering from injury!), has more playoff experience, and is coming off that standout performance at the Olympics, is a two time and counting All Star and, of course, a Norris winner.
It just got me thinking this week what with Subban reportedly asking for $8.5 and heading to arbitration over it and Jake Gardiner (a guy who has 9 fewer career points than Karlsson had just last season) getting $4.5 being and that deal being hailed as a stroke of genius. Gardiner’s deal will probably end up being a very good contract for the maple loaves but until further notice they just locked up the street cred Patrick Wiercioch. Say what you will about Gardiner’s ice time but Patty W’s affair with the coach’s wife cost him nearly 30 games last season and he had only 8 fewer points than JG. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, Erik Karlsson has one of the best contracts in the league.
Here here. Good response. I definitely struggled with the Karlsson thing. BUT HOW WOULD I FIT DAVID MOSS?