Out of that list, Lupul is the toughest to move.
Out of all those contracts, he is definitely the most overpaid. And 3 year term is still hard to move. And at 32 years old starting this season, he'll be 34 1/2+ when his contract expires. Phaneuf is starting at 30 1/2 and will be 36 when his contract expires. But he's got more value than Lupul at present and defensemen age more gracefully than wingers.
I have my own "capology" method that I'm cooking up right now to determine "player value" in terms of cap hit. It needs A LOT of work admittedly (it's very difficult to determine player value. Sometimes I wonder if it's even worth putting the work into this. But it's at least interesting to look at). But these are the preliminary results.
I calculated that Lupul is about $2.8 million overpaid. He missed *a lot* of ice time. And his performance has trailed off in the last 2 seasons. When I re-work my formula, Lupul may probably be worth more than $2.45 million. My formula at present doesn't distinguish between guys who are involved in play more (ie. Phil Kessel) versus passengers (ie. Tyler Bozak). My new formula is going to nerf passengers and reward players who are more involved in goals (Goals and primary assists will be rewarded equally. Secondary assists will be rewarded less for forwards but will be rewarded either equally to primary assists for defenseman or just slightly less. Passengers who don't even get secondary assists very often get nerfed). I'm going to call the "nerf" the Tyler Bozak coefficient.
If Joffrey Lupul plays on the SC1 and PP1 this season, I hope he doesn't get injured too often. Because this is a great opportunity for him to increase his value.
Phaneuf is about $1.5 million overpaid(more or less). He's not the #1 guy. He's probably a #2 guy.
Gardiner is about $1.05 million overpaid (more or less). Jake Gardiner is a good possession player. But when the team is averaging only 1.96 goals/60 mins on the 5v5 while you're on the ice across a sample size of 171 games (3 seasons), I think it's fair to say that you're not as good as the internet thinks you are. For those who are curious, the Leafs averaged 2.31 goals/60 on the 5v5 in the last 3 seasons. Note: Gardiner didn't play much in 2012-13. If you look at the last 2 seasons strictly, Leafs averaged 2.18 GF/60. Gardiner's numbers are still on the low side at any rate (averaging 1.95 goals/60 mins in 159 games in the last 2 seasons. 159 games is a pretty respectable sample and his rate is not much different from the 171 game sample. So I think it's fair to say that goal samples of that size are legit). And Gardiner hasn't impressed on the power-play either. A puck-moving defenseman should be more productive offensively.
Bozak is about $200k overpaid (probably more). Poor defensively. High goal for rate when he's on the ice. But he played a lot with Phil Kessel and James van Riemsdyk. He is likely a passenger, he doesn't score a lot or put up a lot of points and is probably worth even less than $4 million/yr. My data shows that Phil Kessel is only worth $634k more than Tyler Bozak and JVR is worth $602k more. This means that JVR is worth almost as much as Kessel. I think right now my player value evaluation of Phil Kessel (<$4.7 mil) is on the low-side. It's probably about where it should be for JVR (>$4.6 mil) And the >$4 mil estimate for Tyler Bozak seems high to me.
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