Regardless of the value of points, a statistic like points per dollar is utterly useless in any comparison if you are not comparing apples to apples.
In this case, you are comparing Karlsson to every player in the league. That includes forwards, players on their entry-level contracts, and players who signed their contracts as restricted free agents. If you just take a cursory glance at the leader board of points per dollar, it becomes clear how unfair it is to use this statistic to judge a defenseman who signed their contract as an unrestricted free agent.
- 74 of the top-99 players were forwards.
- 55 of the top-99 players were on entry-level contracts.
- 40 of the top-99 players were forwards on entry-level contracts.
Forwards on entry-level contracts make up a fairly small percentage of the entire NHL player base, yet they make up over 40% of the top-100 by this stat. It is obviously heavily skewed in favor of players who meet those criteria. Here are a few more fun facts:
- Alex Pietrangelo, a solid pick for this season's Norris Trophy, ranked 349th in cost per point.
- Dylan Gambrell, a heaping pile of trash who couldn't crack our lottery line-up ranked 136th in cost per point.
Why? Because this metric is far too skewed in favor of forwards on their ELCs for defensemen on anything other than an ELC to recover. And Pietrangelo's current contract is one that he signed as an RFA; his contract next year when he signs as a UFA and therefore becomes somebody that you can properly compare Karlsson to will almost certainly be in the 8-figure range.
While I personally don't like points, and I feel that they're a poor metric for evaluating defensemen even if you're just comparing them to other defensemen, there is a proper way to use points per dollar to evaluate whether or not a defenseman is meeting the expectations set by their contracts on the basis of points. That is to compare them to other defensemen who signed under the same or similar conditions.
Under the method of comparison that you're currently using, Karlsson could have scored exactly twice as many points (80 points in 56 games), which would mean he almost certainly had the best offensive season by a defenseman since Bobby Orr, and guess what? He would have still been far behind Dylan Gambrell and Marcus Sorensen by points per dollar. Do you not see the issues with using this method to determine whether or not Karlsson met the expectations of his contract?
For the record, just so that I don't get straw manned here, I fully agree with anybody who says that Karlsson did not meet the expectations set by his contract this season. He didn't even come close. But using points per dollar and comparing him to a bunch of forwards on their ELCs is not the right way to show that.
I'm not sure if this continued discussion should be moved to the Karlsson thread? I don't want to take over the Draft thread with EK65 discussion.. But I guess that's not for me to decide. Anyways..
While I disagree it is a horrible stat when looking at the value of a contract, I will say it is a stat that needs a lot of context and I could have made one longer post with all the context in one place. As I don't feel like typing the same response I had to Barrie once again, I will quote the context I gave previously:
Karlsson will obviously never be anywhere near the top, but if he ranked near Crosby (491 while playing 15 games less) or McDavid (370) I would say he met expectations, that was not the case.
It certainly isn't a perfect stat which I have mentioned several times, but I think it's decent stat for comparing similar players as you mentioned (which I briefly alluded to in my last quoted post). More context:
Top 10 Highest Paid Players
1. McDavid - $128k per point
2. Panarin - $122k per point
3. Matthews - $145k per point
4. Karlsson - $287k per point
5. Doughty - $314k per point
6. Tavares - $183k per point
7. Marner - $162k per point
8. Kane - $125k per point
9. Toews - $175k per point
10. Kopitar - $161k per point
Out of the top 10 highest paid players in the NHL Karlsson and Doughty are by far the worst terms of cost per point. Doughty is not an OFD, and is known to be on a horrible contract, so the fact that Karlsson is even close to him in terms of cost per point should be scary.
Obviously the argument from here is that you can't compare Karlsson to highly paid forwards in terms of points. While I strongly disagree, as Karlsson is paid to be the best offensive player at his position and has played 27-28 minutes per game in previous seasons, I can provide further context regarding that as well:
Top 10 Highest Paid Defenseman
1. Karlsson - $287k per point
2. Doughty - $314k per point
3. Subban - $500k per point
4. Ekman-Larsson - $275k per point
5. Trouba - $296k per point
6. Carlson - $106k per point
7. Burns - $177k per point
8. Hedman - $143k per point
9. Weber - $218k per point
10. Suter - $157k per point
Out of this entire list, Karlsson is supposed to be the most pure OFD in that he provides the least physical or defensive help. He is also in the prime ages of his career. Yet, only Doughty, Subban, and Trouba were worse in terms of cost per point. Doughty is known to be on a terrible contract, Subban is known to be on one of the worst contracts in the league, and Trouba's contract will also be horrible going forward.
Even if Karlsson was at about $200k per point (still behind all other forwards on the top 10 highest paid, and #5 for dmen) that would be about 57 points. I would say that is a decent baseline number for Karlsson having an acceptable offensive output going forward. The 2 seasons Karlsson has been on the Sharks, he has averaged 43 points. As I already stated, injuries happen but if EK65 is getting paid 11.5m and scoring less than 57 points for the next several seasons, the Sharks will be in trouble.
