LCS Hockey - He Makes How Much?

He Makes How Much?
by Wallace Hannum, Correspondent

He Makes How Much? by Wallace Hannum Sergei Fedorov is the highest paid player in hockey. Sergei Fedorov made $14 million. Sergei Fedorov has an underwhelming 23 goals and 57 points. Markus Naslund has 36 goals and 64 points. Markus Naslund gets less than $800,000. Granted, if I was playing a game in the mall's skating rink, I'd pick Fedorov for my team first. But not if I have to buy him 35 beers after the game and Markus just wants two. That's the ratio for all you math people.

Now, I know what you think about Britney Spears and I know that you think sure, Fedorov is the better player. I also know all the words to "Strangers in the Night" but you don't care about that. For shame. About Sergei being better, he only played 21 games last year. He put up 17 points. If you stretch that out over a full 82 game season, he was on track to get about 25 goals and 66 points. Hardly the big can of whup ass. In 96-97, (that's two years ago for those of you in West Virginia) Sergei got a stunning 30 goals and 63 points. My guess is that next season Mr. Fedorov will score about 25 goals and total around...oh, I don't know...60 points for the 4th season in a row. Naslund averages around 47 points over the past four. Just so you know.

Because Fedorov hasn't exactly been burning out the lamp, the Red Wings seem to feel they needed the help of about 19 free agents at the trade deadline to actually have a chance at another Cup. But my feelings about acquiring rent-a-players to save your slacking team's chances since they can't EARN another Cup and how I think the trade deadline ought to be at the All-Star break isn't the issue here. I just hope Detroit doesn't win another Cup. It's just not right. My point is that Jaromir Jagr will win another Art Ross with another 100+ point season and makes less than $5 million. I know Sergei's number is inflated with a bonus, but damn. Jagr, Lemieux, and Gretzky are the only guys to win an Art Ross in the past 20 years. That's Jagr's company. Number 99 and Number 66. Now, Sergei scores about as much as say... Tony Amonte. Amonte makes $2.8 mil and has outscored Sergei the last three years in a row.

Speaking of overpaid, Mark Messier makes more than Jagr, Teemu Selanne, and Mike Modano. Don't get me wrong, I love Vancouver (they really are my favorite team) but what is Moose bringing to the ice that's worth that much bank? Experience? Gretzky has a little of that and he makes the same amount. Hell, Esa Tikkanen has five rings and makes 1/10th as much. Grit? Even Valeri Kamensky had more PIM than Mark did. Think about that. A guy named Valeri had more PIM than he did. Teammate Donald Brashear had more than six times as many penalty minutes (372 to be exact).

So Mark's not a scorer or an enforcer and I don't think they can use his playoff leadership up in Vancouver. Basically, I think the Canucks want other teams to respect them. So, they wheel out an aging Moose and say "We got Messier. So....you know...we can't suck THAT much." I saw two games this year in Vancouver. They lost them both, of course, but it was nice to watch them underachieve live. Let me tell you this, Messier is old. He fanned on two shots that would have been game-winners in the first game and was literally the slowest forward out there on both nights, hands down. I love him and I know he can help the Canucks, but not for $5 million. I'd rather have Teemu.

Oh, and by the way, Mogilny raked in $4.2 million this year as well. That means they paid $9.2 million for a total of 25 goals. Maybe that's why they can only afford $770,000 for a starting goalie and get stuck with Garth Snow. Here's an idea, stop overpaying Alexander the Great and Moose and get a real netminder. Byron Dafoe signed for only $80,000 more than Snow did. The problem, I think, is that no good goalie wants an 8-26-2 season with the Canucks.

Speaking of last place teams paying more than they can afford for their players, let's head over to Chicago. Oh, but they traded Chelios you're thinking. Guess what? Doug "Happy" Gilmour gets $6 million (that's right at twice what Chelios was making.) I like Doug a lot. He really is a terrific player but I'm thinking Amonte gets less than half that much and he's the best Chicago forward. I bet Doug thought he was heading to a playoff team, too. Poor bastard.

But when it comes to paying too much for a team that will be playing golf come May, look no further than the NY Rangers. They bankroll a sub-500 team with a giant, Donnie Brasco gangsta wad. Did you know Mike Richter gets $5.1 million? Are you familiar with the names Martin Brodeur and Ed Belfour? Brodeur had a 1.89 GAA and 10 shutouts last year. Eddie had a 1.88 GAA and nine shutouts. Mikey had 2.66 and 0 shutouts. Yep, 72 games and no shutouts. There is so much talent between the pipes out there for much, much less money. There's the aforementioned Dafoe who is whippin' that ass to the tune of 2.05 GAA with 10 shutouts for $850,000. Nikolai Khabibulin, Olaf Kolzig, and many backups like Roman Turek and Craig Billington would probably dig a regular start and a $2.5 million salary. That's less and half of what's going out to Richter.

Obviously, with teams paying too much for their star players there are gonna be guys not getting props. Philly pays the Mark Recchi's $4.5 million, Beezer gets over $4 million, Steve Duchesne makes $3.75 million, Rod Brind'Amour picks up $3.5 million, and there's Eric Lindros' $8.5 million. This leaves little doubt as to why John LeClair "only" gets $3.6 million. This guy has scored 50 or more goals the last three years. Lindros has never had one 50-goal season. I'm not saying Eric isn't an amazing player, but is he more than twice the player LeClair is? No chance. Is Mark Recchi really worth that much more? John LeClair is huge, has great hands, and a powerful, accurate shot. He is clearly one of the elite players in hockey. He should be paid as such (i.e. Bure makes $6.4M, Sundin makes $6.3M, Forsberg gets $6M).

Another guy not making the bank he should is Darryl Sydor. As much as I dislike Dallas, this guy is the one that actually runs the power play for them. He is smart, one of the best playmaking blueliners, and fast. Not Selanne fast, but certainly one of the best skating defensemen. Darryl pulls in $1.8 million, which is quite a bit for a defensemen, but Dallas has more money than Oprah and they're paying Hatcher $2.6M. More importantly they're dishing out $3.2M to Pat Verbeek (not a typo), Hull gets $4.5M, and Mikey Mo rolls an even $5 million. That's a whole buncha big ass checks getting handed out.

And because he's on such a massively talented team, people rarely see how much Sydor helps that squad. But if he had stayed healthy he'd have around 52 points this year. He had 46 and 48 points the previous two seasons. That's more that the $4.7 million MacInnis and much more than the $2.75 million Mathieu Schneider. I seriously consider Sydor in the same category as the $3-$4 million defensemen of the league but I think his playing for the Stars costs him a big chunk of his check. Murray Baron makes $2.6 million for God's sake. Of course, that's out in Vancouver where apparently they've found a wonderful system of paying giant amounts of money to older, less productive players. In a few years, Darryl should head up there and cash in.

I'd love to talk about this all day... but I'm not. It just seems like the most overpaid guys seem to come from the teams that need the money the most. Or from teams that won a Cup awhile ago and keep hanging on to their heroes of the past (which is cool with me). The teams that seem to underpay are teams that are spending huge dollars on the top two or three guys and simply don't have enough to spread around.

Finally, I just want to say that as interesting as this is for me to discuss, I think it really sucks that I can find out how much every single NHLer makes. It's one of the reason why salaries continue to climb higher and higher. You KNOW Kariya sees Lindros is making $8.5 million and says "That's what I want." These guys are competitive people. That's why they love competitive sports. Of course they're going to compete when it comes to compensation. If they got less money then maybe tickets wouldn't cost way too much and more people would attend games. Then Canada wouldn't be stripped of all its teams. Besides, how many people want their salary put up in a chart on a web site. It would drive me crazy if my co-workers knew how I only made 18% of what they made. Imagine the humiliation. They already tease me about the patches on my pants and my one shoe. Jerks.

 
Overpaid                        Underpaid 
Sergei Fedorov    - DET  $14M   Jaromir Jagr   - PIT $4.9M
Mats Sundin       - TOR $6.3M   John LeClair   - PHI $3.6M
Mark Messier      - VAN   $6M   Tony Amonte    - CHI $2.8M
Mike Richter      - NYR $5.1M   Boris Mironov  - CHI $1.2M
Mark Recchi       - PHI $4.5M   Tommy Salo     - EDM $1.15M
Alexander Mogilny - VAN $4.2M   D. Kasparaitis - PIT $1.1M
Rod Brind'Amour   - PHI $3.5M   Valeri Bure    - CAL $925,
Geoff Courtnall   - STL $3.5M   Zdeno Chara    - NYI $875,
Jyrki Lumme       - PHO $2.8M   Byron Dafoe    - BOS $850,
Murray Baron      - VAN $2.6M   Miroslav Satan - BUF $850,
Bob Rouse         - SAN $1.9M   Oleg Kvasha    - FLO $550,

Most Overpaid: Geoff Courtnall, Murray Baron

Most Underpaid: Byron Dafoe, Miroslav Satan (how cool is that guy?)

Let me remind you that all the guys I list under Overpaid are all good players (except Baron). I'm just saying that they are getting WAY too much money that should be heading over to the guys on the underpaid list. I know that guys like Dafoe, Alexei Yashin, and Naslund are all going to get nice fat raises on their next contract. And I know guys like Oleg Kvasha and Zdeno Chara are still young and will make the money in the next few seasons. And I still know that Fedorov and other's salaries are inflated due to bonuses. But compensation is compensation. And dammit, I still know what you did last summer.