If there’s one important aspect to building a championship NHL roster in a salary-cap world, it’s “contract efficiency”. While a few superstars are worth their weight in gold, it’s the supporting cast you surround them with that you have to ensure you’re squeezing every bit of value from.

But the definition of efficiency differs from player to player. A 25-point season might be fantastic for a player on a league-minimum deal, but not for one making $8 million a year. The average defenceman’s value isn’t going to be measured by how many goals they have, but by how good they are at preventing offence instead.

That’s why we’re going to look at five Vancouver Canucks players — four forwards and one defender — and how their contracts provide the least amount of risk and, potentially, the biggest rewards by measuring cost for points and games played.

Talk about being in the right cap situation at the right time.

Daniel Sprong is coming off back to back 40 point seasons with Seattle and Detroit, and yet the Canucks have landed him for under a million dollars. Sprong’s signing meant to add some scoring prowess to the bottom six, but the can also pinch hit on the first two lines when the situation calls for it.

Even if Sprong musters less than half the number of points he did in the last two years (20), he’d be running a CPP of $48,750. Bump it up to 40 points and that number drops below $25k. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, this contract is truly as safe a bet a team can make.

Speaking of low cost, high return deals, Nils Höglander remains a Vancouver Canuck and one of the team’s best value signings.

Höglander’s stock in Vancouver has been up and down across the last few years, but it’s likely never been higher than it is after his 2023-24 campaign.

Höglander’s contract signed before last season pays him just a shade over a million dollars, and he’s coming off his most productive season yet. Höglander’s career-high 36 points cost the Canucks just $30,555 per point, even though he hit a cold snap in the later stages of the season and the playoffs. And the good news is he’s likely only going to get better and more dependable from here.

Pius Suter was everything the Canucks needed him to be last year and then some. And that’s exactly why they needed to sign a bunch of extra wingers and have him back centring his own line.

Suter ended up playing a pivotal role next to J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser during the playoffs, but having him centering a line between a Daniel Sprong and/or a Kiefer Sherwood is the kind of depth that the Canucks sorely needed in May. His 29 points earned him a CPP of $55,172.41 last year, and even though it might be harder to reach that number again this time around, Suter’s impact in places like the penalty kill would more than make up for such a drop.

Last year Danton Heinen had one of the most efficient contracts in the NHL, scoring 36 points for Boston on a league minimum deal. This year, he’ll be playing for a fair bit more.

Heinen’s new two-year deal worth an annual value of $2.25 million is a bit of a gamble compared to how little the Bruins paid, but the Canucks are confident that he’ll live up to it. Heinen will get a lot of opportunities between the top and bottom six, likely starting as a new wing option for Miller and Boeser’s line.

Should he hit his totals from last season Heinen would be earning $62,500 per tally, but if he can find a way to match his career high of 47 points in 2017-18 that number would tumble all the way down to $47,872.34. It’ll all depend on how much chemistry he finds with his new linemates, and who they are.

Another newcomer to the Canucks, Derek Forbort takes over part of the roles left by Nikita Zadorov and Ian Cole, albeit for significantly less money. Forbort’s job as a depth defender won’t be to put a lot of pucks in the net – his career high is 18 points in 2016-17 and 2017-18 – but as the cheapest third pairing option aside from Noah Juulsen and Mark Friedman he does bring the most experience and physicality that Rick Tocchet loves in his blue liners.

The only question for Forbort and the Canucks as far as efficiency goes is in the health department. Forbort’s season last year was derailed by injuries, including a lower body issue that required surgery in March. So a lot of the value Vancouver will get from Forbort will be tied to just how many games he can play. If we were to take Forbort’s cap hit and divide it by 70 (leaving room for 12 games missed to injury time or scratches), that would give him an appearence fee of $21,428 per game. For context, 7o games of Quinn Hughes costs a little over $112k per game. Paying just under one-sixth that amount for Forbort is in just the right neighborhood for a depth defender.