Ricelund
̶W̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶t̶e̶a̶m̶
Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic:
Methodology:
Methodology:
Teams will be graded empirically based on the surplus value they bring in per player contract (all dead money counts as one) as well as the average probability those deals will provide positive value. Both are based on a player’s age-adjusted projected win output according to GSVA and the uncertainty in that projection for future seasons, along with the cost of a win on the open market. How much each team spends to obtain those wins will also be graded.
What’s being assessed is the future value of the remainder of each contract, meaning what a player has already done holds no merit here. Future value means age is crucial in terms of grading each contract, with players peaking between the ages of 22-26 and declining afterward.
Surplus value will depend on term, where more seasons give more opportunity to compound value. Positive value probability depends on the certainty of a player’s projection which depends on how much variance there has been in the player’s past numbers. Longer term means that uncertainty increases.
Each contract will be graded based on where their combined surplus value and positive value probability fall on the following percentile scale. All contract and roster data is as of July 15.
Mods - please snip the quote if you feel I posted too much of the article.Last, and certainly least, it’s Detroit. How could it be any other team? With four contracts in the D-range on the books, the Red Wings are in a four-way tie for the most bad deals in the league. Where Detroit differs is that the other teams have a few more above average deals to offset the pain. Not Detroit who have as many toxic deals as above-average ones. Those belong to Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha, Tyler Bertuzzi and Andreas Athanasiou – four forwards that provide the bulk of the team’s on-ice value. Without them, this team would be cooked.
The biggest issue for Detroit is how much the team is spending for a marginal win over the remainder of their contracts. It’s not just the alarming number of poor deals, or the certainty in how bad those deals are, but the fact that those deals are mostly for players that bring huge negative value. The team is spending $14.5 million per win, the league’s second-highest mark. That contributes to the team’s 35 percent average for positive value probability which is the league’s lowest mark, stemming from seven deals sitting at an under 20 percent success rate.
The team signed a replacement level forward to a two-year deal worth $3 million per, and it’s somehow not even close to being the worst deal on the books. That honour could go to Trevor Daley or Danny DeKeyser or Jonathan Ericsson or Darren Helm or Frans Nielsen or Justin Abdelkader and the fact the team has this many options is why they’re ranked so low.
(Abdelkader made the honourable mentions list on last week’s worst contracts, but through my own personal error should’ve actually been … second. I wrote down that he only had three years left, but he actually has four somehow. My sincerest apologies).
None of them are that expensive, but those deals add up into death by a thousand cuts. Those seven deals are collectively worth $69 million in financial commitment over the next several seasons, $29 million of which is tied up in next year’s cap. The Red Wings stand to lose just over five wins of value combined from those players over the entirety of their contract, with 40 percent of that coming in 2019-20. That’s as bad as it gets.
Well, actually, it gets worse. The next five deals are worth $17 million and are worth negative 0.1 wins on top of that. I just can’t fathom that a professional hockey team is spending over $80 million on players that are actively hurting the team’s chances of winning. New GM Steve Yzerman has his work cut out for him.
