Is it better to have Evan Bouchard, Zach Hyman, and Leon Draisaitl for only $30.4 million?

Edmonton Oilers get second most bang-for-salary-cap-buck of any NHL team, says NHL cap analyst

This in from The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn, his assessment that the Edmonton Oilers have used their cap dollars with the second best efficiency of any NHL team, behind only the Florida Panthers.

Wrote Luszczyszyn: “The Stanley Cup runner-ups look like the front-runner for next season. What Edmonton lacks in long-term promise compared to Florida, it makes up for in the short term with a massive annual surplus that leads the league. The Oilers’ roster being $32 million better than their current cap hits is $7 million ahead of Florida, the next-best team. That stems from the team’s best players being on stronger short-term deals. As good as Barkov, Tkachuk, Reinhart and Forsling are for $34 million, having Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman and Evan Bouchard for just $30.4 million is even better. That’s a $26 million yearly surplus on those four alone.”

The best value contracts on the Oilers according to Luszczyszyn are Evan Bouchard, who earns $9.5 million less than he’s worth, Connor McDavid, $6.2 million less, Zach Hyman, $5.6 million, and Leon Draisaitl, $4.6 million.

Luszczyszyn notes that the Oilers have a few overpays as well, Darnell Nurse getting $3.4 million more than he’s worth this year and Evander Kane, $2.7 million more.

My take
1. Dom Luszczyszyn does compelling work in this post. He’s not always right in his player valuations, in that analytics can only go so far in fairly and accurately assessing any player’s true talent.

Any stats analyst is only as good as the numbers that are being using. I’ll suggest the number available to the public are strong for ranking offensive play but still average-to-weak for assessing defensive play and physicality. But Luszczyszyn does well with the info he has, so I place weight in his overall assessment.

Essentially he’s saying here that in an NHL with an $88 million cap, the Oilers roster have a $120 million team.

2. One assessment I disagree? Luszczyszyn has Mattias Janmark — who will make $1.5 million — as a $700,000 overpay this year. It’s no mystery why some analytical systems would see Janmark as an overpay. His scoring numbers are weak and the team tended to have weaker out-shooting and out-shooting numbers when he was on the ice compared to other Oilers. It’s also the case that Janmark’s inspired play during the playoffs boosted his contract value in Edmonton.

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But I see Janmark in a better light. When it comes to suppressing Grade A shots and playing smart and tight defensive hockey, the Oilers have no better forward than Janmark. He’s a brilliant penalty killer. In big games, he also provided a strong physical element. He was as tough in one-on-one puck battles as any Oiler not named Zach Hyman, Evander Kane, Mattias Ekholm or Connor McDavid. He was something of a playoff a beast. A mini-beast perhaps, not a total monster, but still a beast.

It could be that Luszczyszyn’s assessment of an overpay will turn out to be more in line with Janmark’s play for this coming season. But I’ll suggest my own analysis is also credible. It’s based on specific individual statistics derived from video analysis. I’m OK with Janmark back on the team at that $1.5 million price tag and am glad he’ll be on the playoff roster in particular.

But my own analysis of the value of Oilers players generally aligns with Luszczyszyn’s take, though I might discount Nurse even more than Luszczyszyn does at this point, and I put more value on Janmark and Kane. Of course, much depends on Kane’s health in terms of his performance this coming year.

3. For years the Oilers seemed like they paid a bit too much when it comes to salary, term or both when they signed players. It’s a welcome development that they now appear to have turned the tables on that ugly trend and are getting excellent value on contracts.

It’s hard to know exactly how much the recent improvement in this area has to do with the Oilers going so far in the playoffs and how much credit Jeff Jackson deserves. It strikes me Jackson is a master persuader, so he’s got something to do with the uptick in value deals for the organization.