Bang for the Buck?
How much is a player really worth? Everyone knows that Alexei Yashin isn’t worth $6-million a year but what about Mats Sundin or Danny Heatley. Are they worth $6-million and $4-million respectively. And which player offers the best value in the NHL based on their salary and performance? Canadian Business Online decided to find out by conducting a study focused on value.
“Water cooler chat inevitably turns to player salaries,” says Marc Reppin, Director of Content and Product Development for Canadian Business Online. “But that chatter is always topline and very subjective. So we crunched the numbers, the way a company would when evaluating an investment, to add some weight to the debate.” For forwards and teams, the key variable was dollars per point. For goalies, the focus was on dollar per minute spent on the ice. But the editors also pulled up to half-a-dozen other stats per position.”
Here’s Canadian Business’ list of the 10 leading players with the most value (points) per dollar:
If there’s a common denominator, it’s that all of the them (with the exception of the Buffalo Sabres’ Derek Roy and the Colorado Rockies’ Andrew Brunette) are first or second year players.
Here’s the list of the players with the worst value:
The big flaw in the points/dollar formula is it penalizes players who excel defensively but who may not score a lot of points. The New Jersey Devils’ John Madden and the Detroit Red Wings’ Kirk Maltby are good examples of players who fall into this category. But as a quick and dirty valuation tool, it’s not bad.
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POSTED IN: Salary Cap
2 opinions for Bang for the Buck?
Brian Layman
May 8, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Interesting. Yeah, it’s good as a quick and dirty tool, but it doesn’t quite cut it for the St. Patricks of the hockey world!
Geoff Young
May 8, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Interesting read, Mark. The point about first- and second-year players makes a lot of sense. I don’t know much about the economic climate of hockey, but in baseball, drafting and developing guys that are effective almost immediately on reaching the big leagues is paramount to the success of “small market” teams that wish to compete with the big boys. The trick, of course, is in identifying and honing talent in the first place. Easier said than done…
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