Your team's 3 worst and 3 best contracts

[Reimannsum1988]

Ignoring players on their entry-level deals:

Montreal

Best:
Kirby Dach
On the assumption that he returns healthy and remains so.

Sean Monahan
If he actually stays healthy because he's likely been our best forward.

Mike Matheson
A player paid like a second pairing defenseman who performs largely like a second pairing defensemen, on average.

Yeah. That sounds pretty anemic for "best contracts."

Worst:

Brendan Gallagher
Barely an NHLer at this point due his having broken down physically. Being paid nine million dollars this year.

Josh Anderson
He's fast. That's it. That's the extent of his skills.

Joel Armia
He... has a dominant shot in the AHL, and could be effective at protecting the puck along the boards, if he cared or was able to find any kind of consistency.

HM (Worst):
Nick Suzuki - Wildly overpaid and overrated.

Jake Allen - A 2B goaltender, but he'll be off the books soon in terms of the rebuild period.

Christian Dvorak - A fourth line center.

 

[Hisch13r]

Palat
Palat
Palat

Hughes
Bratt
Hischier

 

[M88K]

Best (non elc)
Hintz
Heiskanen
Duchene

Worst Some combo of these
Seguin
Benn
Lindell
Marchment
Suter

 

[Siignal]

I was having trouble thinking of 3 good contracts on the Flames, but I have to agree with yours.

Some days, Markstrom’s makes the worst 3 over Coleman though.

Very true - Markstrom will have more value at the deadline though. That was my thought process

 

[Derailed75]

Canes

Kotkaniemi
Teravainen
Kotchetkov

Worst
Orlov

 

[clydesdale line]

Worst:
Jones
Murphy
Zaitsev

Best:
Uh, geez. Donato? Raddysh?

Best: Bedard on his ELC

 

[Auston Marlander]

Best

Woll
Nylander
McCabe (due to retention)

Worst

Reaves
Klingberg
Kampf

Swap Woll* for Matthews and Kampf for Bertuzzi or Domi.


*Will is great, but needs a larger sample size.

 

[Rich Nixon]

Flyers:

Worst:
Ellis
Ristolainen
Deslauriers (less for the amount, more for the thought process)

(Dishonorable mention is Petersen, but he's not here because we want him on that deal, we're the middleman.)

Best:
Konecny
Farabee
probably York? I dunno. Our cap situation is weird.

Ellis is just gonna be on forever LTIR til 2027 so I don't think he matters too much—they're rebuilding and the cap hit isn't really there outside of some technical complications it creates.

Couturier, signed at $7.75m til 2030 and coming off two back surgeries, is probably worse. Sanheim's cap hit isn't awful and he has played well now that he has a competent partner, but the NTC and length ($6.25m til 2031) are pretty bad.

You're right about Risto.

Hard to do "best" when the guys listed are the only ones signed beyond next season, and Briere decided to punt on getting any youngsters locked up early. Half the roster is on a bridge deal. York is cheap now, when it doesn't mean anything, but he'll be market-rate or worse once his negotiations happen in 2025.

Konecny is a steal though—if they're smart enough to trade him, his low cap hit is gonna make for a large market.

 

[DJB]

Sens

Best
Sanderson - Elite top pairing guy at just a shade over 8 million x 8 years. Absolute stud

Chycrun - Top pairing D man making 4.6 the next two seasons. Been fantastic

Batherson - Top 6 F making only 4.9 for the next 4 years.

Worst
Chabot - A shell of his former self. I’ve blamed coaching but he’s worn down and makes bad decisions. More of a top 4 guy now but makes 8+ for the next 5 years

J Norris - Makes a shade under 8 but he’s always hurt and more of a #2 C so he’s making way too much money and signed for 7 more .

Z MacEwan - 13th forward AHL type but somehow has a 3 year fully guaranteed deal. Yes it’s only 775K but the term is so odd.


Notes
Sens fans are also very very happy with the Tkachuk and Stutzle deals and I would say many would place one of them in the best category over Batherson. I’d also say that many fans would have the Joseph contract as bad but I think 3 million for a 3rd line guy is completely fine

 

[TheBeastCoast]

Swap Woll* for Matthews and Kampf for Bertuzzi or Domi.


*Will is great, but needs a larger sample size.

Kampf definitely a worse contract the Bert or Domi.

 

[Stewie Griffin]

Vlasic contract is so bad it counts as all 3 of our worst. I'll throw David Quinn's contract as an HM he's that bad as a coach.

Best:
None.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Best:
Jack Hughes
Nico Hischier
Jesper Bratt

Worst:
Ondrej Palat
Timo Meier
Dougie Hamilton

 

[LeafalCrusader]

Best:
Nylander
Rielly
Woll

Worst:
Tavares
Klingberg
Reaves

 

[Steven Toast]

Best: McDavid, Draisaitl, Nuge

Worst: Campbell, Nurse, Ceci

 

[KillerMillerTime]

Not really any horrible contracts for the Bruins.

Best:
Mcavoy
Lindholm
Marchand

HM’s:
Pasta
Carlo

Worst:
Forbort
Coyle
Idk, Zboril?

The way Lindholm has looked so far this year, I would put him in HM and elevate Pastrnak. #88 is pacing for more goals and points than last year on a team missing
his centermen in Bergeron and Krejci.

Since Potrais is a rookie I guess you can't include him but obviously he would be one of the best.

 

[GreeningOil]

Best
Draisaitl
RNH
McDavid

Worst :
Nurse
Brown
Campbell

Idk if that’s a list in order, but Campbell is literally the worst goalie. 2 good saves for every 5 bad goals lol. He’s worth about as much as I make at work

 

[RapidKnight]

Best:
1) Thompson
2) Theodore
3) Eichel (not clear though)

Worst:
1) Martinez
2) Pietrangelo (age)
3) Kolesar
Dishonorable Mention: Stephenson

 

[Mav3rick07]

Idk if that’s a list in order, but Campbell is literally the worst goalie. 2 good saves for every 5 bad goals lol. He’s worth about as much as I make at work

Yeah it's in order, I would probably swap Campbell and Brown though.

Nurse is definitely the worst because it's almost double Campbell's salary and it's long term.

 

[Umingmak]

Non-elc.
Best
Walman
Larkin
DeBrincat

Worst
Chiarot
Fabbri
Petry

These would've been my picks too.

Just based on the first 12 games this year...

HM for Best: Gostisbehere, Rasmussen

HM for Worst: Perron, Husso

 

[KrisLetAngry]

Best
Malkin
Sid
Guentzel

Worst
Jarry
Carter
Acciari

Best
Malkin
Sid
Petterson

Worse
Carter
Karlsson
Acciari

 

[GreeningOil]

Yeah it's in order, I would probably swap Campbell and Brown though.

Nurse is definitely the worst because it's almost double Campbell's salary and it's long term.

Nurse is capable of not being the worst possible option at his position though lol. Campbell is about as useful as a goalie cutout playing net

 

[Miller Time]

Best
Monahan (might be league best this year!)
Matheson
Suzuki/Caufield

Worst
Gallagher
Anderson
Armia

 

[TheReelChuckFletcher]

For the Canes, our three best contracts are Svechnikov, Kotkaniemi, and Slavin. Our worst contracts are Orlov and Staal, but those were technically by design. Staal's has an extra 4th year attached to it to lower the cap hit and Orlov's cap hit is artificially high to lower the term to 2 years. Kochetkov's extension may not look so hot this year, but time will tell if they got the evaluation right in the long-term.

 

[Obvious Fabertism]

Best contract surplus values, self perception adjusted, ELCs not included, my projections for the MN Wild this season:

1. JEE - $5.25MM AAV for an all situations player, worthy of Selke nominations. This is one of the best contracts in the league if he plateaus, unprecedented if he continues his trajectory, he is locked into this cap hit for 5 seasons beyond this year.

2. Hartman - He still makes $1.7MM AAV, then bumps up to $4MM next year, worth his weight in gold, versatile up and down the lineup, generates his own offense and has a shot that beats goalies from range. Injuries and penalties have been his challenge, but when healthy he brings tremendous value on ice.

Kaprizov and Boldy are my 3 & 4 but I cannot with confidence say which belongs where, and if they end up playing together I think it will be difficult to separate their exact impacts. Boldy has already missed time injured, so I will put Kap 3rd for now.

HMs:
Gaudreau would probably be on this list if he were healthy, but I think this will be a challenging season for him health wise, re-aggravating an injury early on like he did is not a good sign. But future wise, its hard to not be positive value.

Brodin is worth every penny and more of his $6MM AAV for the stability he provides on the backend, analytically he may not show as a big impactor, but for this Wild team, his presence cannot be understated.

Filip Gustavsson has had a rough start statistically. Mostly a reflection of the team play in front of him, but some is on him too, he started similarly last season though and rebounded nicely. The Wild still have not played a single game with their top 4 D intact, but will soon. Life should be getting easier for the young netminder, and even coming close to his .930 performance last year makes his $3.75MM AAV a potential steal.

 

[Canada4Gold]

Best: Woll, Nylander, Rielly

Worst: Kampf, Reaves, Tavares

Didn't want to go Klingberg, Domi, or Bertuzzi for worst as while they're not performing up to their number it's a 1 year deal so it's not crippling. I was going to go Marner ahead of Tavares since I don't think he should have gotten that much, and I don't think Tavares contract was bad as a whole but the back end of it is an issue. Marner is better and is making less so while I don't think he should have as an RFA it's kind of unfair to say it's worse.

Nylander's deal is a steal, I'm sad it's ending soon. Please resign him, it'll be another steal I promise. Woll has this year and next(and last year) at essentially league minimum. That's going to be a godsend for us next year in the final year of Tavares deal. Rielly isn't in the very top echelon of the league D wise but for a player that good to only be making 7.5 as the high end D are starting to break the 8 digit mark it's looking really good. Matthews is great, but it's going up to 13.25 next year. He's being paid for how good he is. Had to sneak Mo in there.