Which Canucks have provided the most value based on their contract?: Canucks Conversation
29 days ago
On today’s episode of Canucks Conversation, David Quadrelli and Harman Dayal engaged in a lively debate: ranking Canucks players based on their performance relative to their contract value.
Here is CapFriendly’s list of Canucks players ranked by dollars per point:
“I have Höglander at number one,” said Harm. “If you exclude ELC players [those on entry-level contracts], he has the second-best goal-scoring rate relative to cap hit in the NHL. You could make a case that, based on Hoglander’s top-six impact lately, he’s played closer to a four, four-and-a-half million dollar rate. Everyone’s so packed in (this list), Joshua was seventh on my list.”
Quads countered with his argument for Joshua being the most valuable:
“It comes down to what the Canucks haven’t been able to do since [Joshua] has been out of the lineup, and what he was doing for the Canucks when he was in,” Quads stated. “Not taking anything away from Nils Höglander, I have him number two, and I think it’s a flip-flop. I’m surprised you have Joshua at seven because not only does he lead them in points-per-dollar, but this is a guy that kills penalties and is playing everywhere you need him to in multiple situations. Just the hit the team has taken since he went down with the hand injury at the start of February – if we were doing a straight MVP rankings, I think Joshua comes up higher than Höglander, and he makes less money.”
“That’s where we disagree; I think Höglander’s been more valuable,” Harm replied. “Imagine what Vancouver’s top six looks like going into the playoffs if Höglander is a decent fourth-liner but that’s it. It’s not just that he’s producing, the underlying numbers are really sparkling for him. For Joshua, I’m rating him this season as a high-end third-liner, that’s the level he’s played at, so you’d peg him somewhere around the two-hundredth most valuable forward in the NHL. You could make a case that this year, Höglander’s been worth close to what Ilya Mikheyev should’ve been.”
Beyond the Top Two: Hughes, Demko, and Miller
“I have Hughes at number two,” Harm continued. “Erik Karlsson is the highest-paid defenseman at 11.5 [million], you subtract that from Hughes’ 7.85 and that’s more than 3.5 million in surplus value. Then I’ve got Demko three.”
“I’ve got J.T. Miller at four, and I know he makes 8 million, but the way he’s playing this year, he’s right up there in terms of cost-per-point. Miller has been this team’s matchup centre this year, he’s done everything for them.” Quads said as the reason he has Miller higher than Demko.
Harm revealed he thought Demko deserved to be higher on the list than Miller. “The reason I had Demko ahead of Miller is because I looked at Connor Hellbuyck’s next extension, he’s going to be making 8.5 million and for most of the season Demko has paced with Hellebuyck,” he said. “With Miller – he’s been exceptional, and I think arguably Miller has been more valuable than Demko this year based on pure performance, but he’s got a much higher cap hit at 8 million. If you’re trying to make the case that he’s been worth 3-3.5 million more than his actual cap-hit, you’re getting into the territory for him being worth 11 million, which is close, but I don’t think he’s quite there.”
You can watch the full replay of today’s show in the video below:
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Be sure to check out the live show Monday-Friday at 2 PM!
The show can be found on the CanucksArmy YouTube channel and the CanucksArmy Twitter account here. Clips of the show are also posted daily to the CanucksArmy YouTube channel, which you can find by clicking here.
The show is also available in podcast format around 3 PM every day wherever you get your podcasts!
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