The highest-paid player in the NHL finished tied for 57th in scoring last season but, then, points aren’t everything. Leo Carlsson of the Anaheim Ducks is also a possession machine, an ice-eating Swede, he was nearly a point-per-game guy in 12 playoff games, and he’s only 21. Who knows how good he can become?
Your mileage may vary, but the consensus is this: He is unlikely to be $18 million (U.S.) worth of good in the next five years, if only because $18 million per year is a wheelbarrow-tilting number. Kirill Kaprizov makes $17 million per year because of the extra cost to re-sign in Minnesota. Leon Draisaitl, Jack Eichel, Auston Matthews, Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid, four of whom have at least one Hart Trophy and four of whom have appeared in at least one Stanley Cup final, are all clustered between $12.5 and $14 million. (We are ignoring Chicago’s Bowen Byram at $12.5 million here, because, jeez, was that a decision.) McDavid even took less money for the second consecutive contract, for all the good it did him.