It depends on what you consider at the time. Are we talking about after the 48 point season when the contract was already signed? Yeah he may have been at that money level after that year but that's not when the contract extension was signed. They signed him coming off back-to-back point-per-game season and still got him to accept two years when plenty of free agents worse than Marleau were getting 3-5 years. Even if you don't consider him top line money, plenty of teams would've likely disagreed with such a take.
Nope. Wasn't talking about the 48 point season. Was talking his previous 2 years. Which look good by saying "back to back ppg seasons", but by metric of the time, his numbers seemed inflated by playing on the PP with a far superior player and he wasn't as good as most 1st line players making that much money. His comparables at the time were guys like Justin Williams or Alex Tanguay, who were making 3.5 to 5.3 million, or Andy McDonald/ Ales Hemsky types.
34 goals and 86 points and -12 only looks good when comparing him to other 2nd line players with top PP time not facing top line matches at the time. On most teams at the time, if given a choice between trading their top line C or winger for Marleau, maybe 5 teams would have considered it, many based on age not performance.
When Cheechoo is scoring 56 goals and 92 points and Thornton is scoring 125 points and is +31, it wasn't difficult to see who was the straw stirring the drink and who was drinking out of the straw.
Marleau like others benefited from not having top checkers on him and learned from Joe, who was the guy who propelled everyone to be better. He was considered a fringe 1st line C(not a 1st line C on most teams), great 2nd liner, not a 1 A/1B scenario like Sakic and Forsberg or Crosby/Malkin or McDavid/ Draisaitl. It was closer to a recent Kadri behind Mackinnon situation in terms of talent and scoring and everyone knew it.
A lot of people felt Marleau was worth 5.3 million ala Alex Tanguay. Very few thought he was worth 6.3 million at the time. Tanguay got shipped from Colorado after 05-06 because of contract demands and got that 3 year 5.25 million contract in Calgary after back to back over PPG seasons in the same general timeframe, which was considered overpay(he had 79 points in 69 games and 78 points in 71 games back to back, but nobody felt he was a play driver. He was a beneficiary of better teammates). C Marc Savard scored 97 points in Atlanta in 2005-06 and they let him walk to UFA where the Bruins promptly offered him a big UFA contract in 2006-07. 5 Million a year for 4 years(he was, like Marleau, thought to be a passenger on the train at the time)
And im not saying this to bother you. Its just what was largely agreed upon at the time. Marleau was overpaid for what he brought to the table. NOBODY thought that was a good contract for the sharks or the league. Everyone said "oh yay. That lockout sure worked......"
Alongside Glen Sather forgetting there was a salary cap and thinking "I'll New York buy Gomez and Drury"
Thornton's contract was the equivalent of a Matthews contract today, around 13 million. And he was a hart winner/candidate and worth it as he was a franchise player. If the team was contending and could sign prime jumbo to 13.25 million, you do it. But Marleau's contract was equivalent to 11.5 million in today's cap. Nobody would think that's a good idea
