Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic ranks every team in the NHL based on their contract efficiency, which you can see here. Luszczyszyn compares his algorithm's market value to a roster's actual salaries in order to see if a team is making the most of its salary cap space.
Fans will be shocked to read that the CBJ not only sits in a good position, but actually moved up from last season.
The Jackets rank 15th in his efficiency ranking, up two spots from last year's edition.
For the forwards, Kirill Marchenko ranked first, coming in at 100% positive value. Marchenko makes $3.9 million per year, but his surplus is at a whopping $6.6 million, pushing his model value to $10.4 million per season.
Val Nichushkin, Kent Johnson, Dmitri Voronkov, Sean Monahan, and Mathieu Olivier round out the positive players.
The negative value forwards are Cole Sillinger, Isac Lundestrom, Charlie Coyle, Miles Wood, and Conor Garland. Sillinger and Coyle are surprising.
Regarding the defense, Zach Werenski came in with a positive of 99.7%, which puts his total model value at a staggering $18 million per season. Don Waddell better hope Werenski and his camp don't see this model.
Damon Severson and Jake Christiansen were the other positive defensemen. The negative-value blueliners are Dante Fabbro and Ivan Provorov. Provorov's value came in very close to his current AAV.
Luszczyszyn said of Provorov, "He’s not all the way up to $8.5 million of projected value yet, but it was an incredibly encouraging sight to see him actually play at a top-pair level last season. Ditto for Damon Severson."
The goalies came in as expected. Jet Greaves' positive value was at 93.9%, pushing his model value to $12.7 million. Elvis Merzlikins, however, was much worse. His model value came in at $0.8 million.
Are you encouraged by these numbers? It's surprising to me.
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