The Contrarian – Motivational Forces

Thomas Drance

2014-07-20

Motivated, hungry, cheap – on free agents, one-year contracts and redemption seasons.

Lately there is talk about cheap one year contracts given out to players in the hopes that they redeem themselves and prove to the hockey world that they are deserving of more.

Players like Mike Ribeiro, Dany Heatley and Derek Roy.

The talk goes something like this.

“He had a bad year last year and wants to prove that he can be a positive force for the team.”

“He’s going to come to camp hungry and be ready to fight for those top line minutes.”

“If he wants to earn the kind of money that he did before he has to prove that he still has what it takes. Prove that last season was an aberration.”

“He’ll be motivated because he’s only making a little more than the minimum salary.”
It sounds logical but it is true?

I took a look at the players who signed one year contracts last summer at a reduced salary.

These seven players were good signings: (all salary values were compiled from CapGeek.com)

Jaromir Jagr: He has earned 121.3 million dollars in his career but last season he took a two million dollar contract with New Jersey. He got 67 points in 82 games which was not bad considering that he is over 40 years old. It was about the same points per game pace that he set the year before.

Benoit Pouliot: He has earned 12.9 million in his career but was earning only 1.3 million playing for the Rangers last year. His career average would have been to get 33 points and he got 36.

Mason Raymond: He racked up 45 points playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs while earning one million dollars. His career average would have been 39 points. The previous season he tallied 22 points in 46 games so he did bounce back nicely. By the way, he has earned 13.6 million over his career.

Tom Gilbert: He had 13 points in 43 games during the shortened season. He was earning $900,000 with the Florida Panthers last year while he got 28 points in 73 games. It’s a bit lower than his career average but not by much. He has earned 28.2 million over his whole career.

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Mike Santorelli: He has earned 7.6 million but last season only took home $550,000. He bounced back from a one point in ten game season to have 28 points in 49 games with the Vancouver Canucks.

Nathan Gerbe: Similar to Santorelli, he has earned 7.7 million, had recovered from a 10 point in 42 game season to score 31 points in 81 games with Carolina last year. All while earning $550,000.

Mark Fistric: Received $900,000 to get five points in 34 games. His career average was seven points.

There was one player, Andre Benoit, who I did not include on the list of good contracts because he never really earned a lot previously so his one year contract wasn’t so much as a redemption as it was what he was used to. He, however, did great last season. For $900,000 he surpassed his career average of ten points pro-rated to an 82 game a season with 28 points last year.

Good for them but those are merely seven players. I have 22 other players that were not so successful.

Pierre-Marc Bouchard: Nine points in 28 games were not worth the 2 million dollars that he earned. His career average was 51 points. He has earned 29.2 million over his whole career.

Dustin Penner: Career average at the time would have been 46 points but he only got 21 points. Also for $2M.

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