I'm filling in for Alex Mclean today and have a few topics that I wanted to touch on today. I did speak about player valuations in my Wild West column last week, but I wanted to expand on it a little here.

Some of the questions I had were:

What teams are getting the best value from their players and at what position?

What players are providing the best and worst value to their teams based on their cap hit?

Can value be banked going forward?

I'll try to answer these questions below, but to answer them I needed to have a set base rate for salary and a base rating for performance.

I've been looking for a way to numerically tie in a player's salary or cap hit with their performance and after a few attempts, I think I've found something which might work (for me anyway).

As luck would have it, I've been doing Player Game Ratings for a few years now and can find out what an average player rating is out of 10. 

The average player rating for 2022-2023 was:

6.474 – Forwards

6.429 – Defense

6.423 – Goalies

The average salary cap hit for 2022-2023 was:

$3.227 million – Forwards

$3.106 million – Defense

$3.324 million – Goalies

If I combine the rating and the cap hit my formula gives a salary value.

As for the results, we'll start with teams with the best overall surplus value (including LTIR) and conversely the worst deficit value for the 2022-2023 season:

Here are teams ranked by the salary cap surplus value they got from their players during the regular season. LTIR is a tool used strategically now, so it is included. pic.twitter.com/dYHoKrn3f2

— Grant Campbell (@gampbler15) June 20, 2023

Top Five

Colorado Avalanche – $26.8 million

Edmonton Oilers – $24.1 million

Boston Bruins – $22.8 million

Florida Panthers – $18.3 million

Vegas Golden Knights – $18.0 million

Bottom Five

San Jose Sharks – negative $21.2 million

Chicago Blackhawks – negative $19.0 million

St. Louis Blues – negative $12.1 million

Columbus Bluejackets – negative $11.6 million

Calgary Flames – negative $9.3 million

What teams are getting the best value from their players and at what position?

Value in the Forwards:

Top Three:

Edmonton Oilers – $18.1 million

Colorado Avalanche – $15.5 million

Boston Bruins – $13.6 million

Bottom Three:

Washington Capitals – negative $15.6 million

Montreal Canadiens – negative $15.4 million

Chicago Blackhawks – negative $9.3 million

Value on Defense:

Top Three:

Florida Panthers – $12.8 million

Washington Capitals – $10.7 million

Montreal Canadiens – $7.5 million

Bottom Three:

Minnesota Wild – negative $14.7 million

San Jose Sharks – negative $10.7 million

Vancouver Canucks – negative $10.5 million

Value in Goal

Top Three:

Boston Bruins – $8.9 million

Minnesota Wild – $7.7 million

Dallas Stars – $5.8 million

Bottom Three:

Seattle Kraken – negative $6.3 million

Florida Panthers – negative $6.1 million

Detroit Red Wings – negative $5.4 million

LTIR Used:

Top Three:

Vegas Golden Knights – $13.9 million

Montreal Canadiens – $13.3 million

Edmonton Oilers – $8.5 million

What players are providing the best and worst value to their teams based on their cap hit?

There are too many players to list, so I'm just going to focus on the top and bottom three players who are not on entry-level contracts from each position.

Top Three Forwards:

Nathan MacKinnon – $10.1 million surplus on $6.25 million cap hit

Tage Thompson – $9.3 million surplus on $1.4 million

David Pastrnak – $7.3 million surplus on $6.67 million

Bottom Three Forwards:

Jonathan Toews – $7.7 million deficit on $10.5 million

Ryan Johansen – $5.4 million deficit on $8 million

Patrick Kane – $5.3 million deficit on $10.5 million

Top Three Defense:

Brandon Montour – $7.2 million surplus on $3.5 million

Rasmus Dahlin – $5.3 million surplus on $6.0 million

Roman Josi – $5 million surplus on $9.06 million

Bottom Three Defense:

Oliver Ekman-Larsson – $6.45 million deficit on $8.25 million

Marc-Edouard Vlasic – $6.25 million deficit on $7 million

Matt Dumba – $5.1 million deficit on $6 million

Top Three Goalies:

Linus Ullmark – $4.6 million surplus on $5 million

Joonas Korpisalo – $3.9 million surplus on $1.3 million

Ilya Samsonov – $3.8 million surplus on $1.8 million

Bottom Three Goalies:

Sergei Bobrovsky – $7.5 million deficit on $10 million

Jacob Markstrom – $5.25 million deficit on $6 million

Jordan Binnington – $5.1 million deficit on $6 million

Can value be banked going forward?

We tend to look at newly signed contracts as the value that the player will have from the point of signing the contract and what they will be paid from that point on. I believe we need to look at a player like Nathan MacKinnon who was making $6.3 million AAV for the past seven years. I think we can agree that it was one of the best bargain deals in the NHL and that his value was worth more than the $44.1 million he made in that period.

Value can only be banked if the player re-signs with the same team as is the case with MacKinnon signing with Colorado for eight more years at $12.6 million AAV for a total value of $100.8 million.

I would estimate that MacKinnon notwithstanding his three ELC years had a true value of around $75-85 million over the $44.1 million it cost Colorado. At $12.6 million AAV it's going to be a little more difficult for the Avalanche to get more return than they are paying, but they have a $30 to 40 million buffer banked in for the last three or four years of this contract. The front-loaded contract helps this even more as MacKinnon could be full value for $16 to 16.5 million in salary for the next three years.   

Remaining Key Restricted Free Agents

Trevor Zegras – Anaheim

I've compared Zegras and Terry to Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas in St. Louis before. The difference is that both Kyrou and Thomas signed their eight-year $8.25 million AAV deals after their second contracts. Zegras is coming off of his entry-level deal and the Ducks could go a similar route as the Blues did with both he and Terry but they could also bridge Zegras for two or three years at around $5 or 6 million AAV.

Troy Terry – Anaheim – August 2^nd Arbitration hearing scheduled

Terry was a bargain for three years at $1.4 million AAV. I'm not sure the Ducks should give out an eight-year deal but I could certainly see a five-or six-year contract for around $7 million AAV being reasonable. Terry will turn 26 years old by the start of next season.

Vince Dunn – Seattle – July 24^th Arb

Dunn will turn 27 about a month into next season and has an expired two-year deal with the Kraken at $4 million AAV. In my mind, he had a career year with 14 goals and 50 assists and his level of play was around $7.5 million. If I was the Kraken, I'd offer five or six years at between $6 and 6.5 million AAV. Dunn could gamble on himself and sign a one-year deal to walk himself to unrestricted free agency.

The Kraken has just over $9 million in cap space for 2023-2024 but might want to add a few more pieces to their roster.

K'Andre Miller – NY Rangers

The Rangers have just over $6.1 million in cap space for 2023-2024 and need to re-sign Miller and Alexis Lafreniere. I had Miller at around $5.1 million last year, but it looks like the Rangers will need to bridge him for one or two years at around $3 to 3.5 million if Miller will accept.

This could get interesting as the Rangers have Adam Fox signed for $9.5 million AAV and Jacob Trouba at $8 million AAV. Not many teams have three or more defenders signed for that type of money. *Updated – Miller signed for two years at $3.87 million AAV

After signing MIller to a 2 year / $3.872M AAV deal, we now show the #NYR with $2,303,417 in projected cap space based on an active roster of 22 players (12F-8D-2G)

Unsigned RFA's include:
Alexis Lafrenière
Brandon Scanlinhttps://t.co/aJEzROHCnf

— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) July 11, 2023

Gabriel Vilardi – Winnipeg – July 28^th Arb

The Jets would be wise to see if Vilardi can grow from his 23 goals and 18 assists in 63 games. He's struggled to stay healthy with 63 games being the most he has played and he has been fairly inconsistent to date. I had his value at around $4 million in 2022-2023, and he should be a player who is on the rise.

Do the Jets lock him up longer term at a valued contract or go short-term and risk paying more down the line? I'd choose the latter.

Evan Bouchard – Edmonton

The Oilers have just over $5.6 million of cap space to re-sign Bouchard and Ryan McLeod for 2023-2024. Bouchard is coming off of his entry-level contract while McLeod has arbitration rights. I had Bouchard's value at around $4.2 million for 2022-2023 but that doesn't include his fantastic playoffs.

If the Oilers can fit both players in under $5.6 million for next season they are doing well. The cap will only get tighter in the following years for Edmonton.

Filip Gustavsson – Minnesota – August 4^th Arb

The Wild have just over $8.2 million in cap space for 2023-2024 with Gustavsson, Brandon Duhaime, and Calen Addison to re-sign. Gustavsson was fantastic for the Wild in 39 games, getting 22 wins and posting a save percentage of 93.1 percent. He has 66 career games under his belt and the Wild will want to keep him for the next two or three years but we can't forget that Minnesota has the 20-year-old Jesper Wallstedt waiting in the wings.

Jeremy Swayman – Boston – July 30^th Arb

The Bruins have just over $6.2 million of cap space left for 2023-2024 and have Linus Ullmark signed for two more years at $5 million AAV. The 24-year-old Swayman played 37 games and won 24 of them with a save percentage of 92.0. They played a 1A and 1B role in 2022-2023 so it will be interesting to see if Boston deploys them in a similar way for 2023-2024.

Ullmark is only 29 years old so we can't just assume that Swayman inherits his role in two years. The Bruins will be forced to pay Swayman over $3.5 million AAV in all likelihood for a shorter term.

Ilya Samsonov – Toronto – July 21^st Arb

Even with Jake Muzzin on LTIR and Matt Murray off the books, the Maple Leafs only have about $1.4 million in cap space for 2023-2024. The question is then, how will they get Murray off the books? Samsonov played well in his 42 games and posted 27 wins and a save percentage of 91.9. His value is around $5 million AAV at this point so it's apparent that Toronto has more moves to do during the off-season.

Thanks for reading and if you have any questions or players, you'd like me to look at please message or follow me on Twitter @gampbler15.