Canucks ranked highly among NHL teams in contract efficiency

Patrik Allvin has done remarkably well during his (relatively) short time as Vancouver Canucks general manager. Certainly he's already leaving his mark on the organisation as the first Swedish general manager in NHL history.

Hired in January of 2022, Allvin's impact really started to take a hold on the ice this past season. The Canucks surprised a lot of experts by claiming their first division title since 2012-13 and totalling the third-most regular season points in team history.

As a result, Allvin was unsurprisingly named as one of the three finalists for the General Manager of the Year Award. Yes, he ultimately didn't win, but just the fact he was nominated speaks volumes about his impact in Vancouver.

Along these lines, the 49-year-old's work has received kudos in an excellent article by The Athletic on Thursday. Written by Dom Luszczyszyn (subscription required), the articles looks at all 32 NHL teams and ranks them in respect of contract efficiency, i.e. who spends their money most wisely.

(Just for some context about Luszczyszyn's approach to this exercise before we continue, he writes: "The goal here is to grade contracts empirically with the same context being applied to each player across the league: How much value does each player bring to the table per year and over the life of the contract? The way that’s measured comes from comparing a player’s Net Rating and the expected salary that comes with it to a player’s current contract")

Canucks jump all the way up to fifth place

When it comes to the Canucks' contract efficiency this year, Luszczyszyn places them fifth with a A- grade. On its own this is a tremendous ranking, but it's even more impressive when you consider The Athletic had them down in 18th position this time last year.

We put a lot of this down to the Canucks no longer having either Nikita Zadorov or Elias Lindholm on their roster. More specifically, that Allvin and company did not overpay to keep the duo in Vancouver.

This is backed up further by taking a look at the Boston Bruins' ranking of 15th which, while not bad in terms of being right around league average, is a big drop from fourth place last year. And when you look at the additions of Zadorov and Lindholm, it is hard to dismiss the negative impact.

Zadorov and Lindholm are the only players with D grades, at D- and D respectively, with both also easily having the biggest total negative surpluses on the Bruins roster. To be clear, we're not saying they aren't talented players who won't help the team -- they are and they will -- but it's clear the Bruins overpaid for both of them.

No D grades on the Canucks roster

In comparison, none of the Canucks players get a grade below a C, and only two have negative surplus values -- Tyler Myers and Nils Aman -- with neither being particularly significant. Myers has an annual surplus of -$1.1 million, i.e. making $1.1 million more than his value, while Aman's is the grand total of $0.1 million ($100,000).

To provide even more reason for how impressive the Canucks' ranking is, consider that they have the second-most dead money to contend with in the NHL. Without this, they would have been placed even higher, alluding again to the magic that Allvin has regularly worked during his tenure in Vancouver.

At the other end of the grading scale, the Canucks have Quinn Hughes leading the way with a A+ and a team-leading annual surplus value of $6.9 million. Not exactly a surprise, considering Hughes is coming off a season where he led all NHL blueliners with a career-high 92 points and won the Norris Trophy.

The other player in this category is recent signing Jake DeBrusk, who has a A- grade and a total surplus of $10.9 million. So in other words, even though DeBrusk was the Canucks' major signing in free agency, his contract was a tremendous financial piece of business for the team.

Overall, we've previously stated the Canucks are in an excellent position, something which The Athletic's article only reinforces. We appreciate that the 2023-24 campaign will be tough to replicate this coming season, but the team is at least well-positioned with the strong leadership and decision-making from Allvin, the rest of the front office and the coaching staff.

Recent Posts