The Athletic: Boldy in NHL Top 10 list, but not Caufield

At this time last year, Dom Luszczyszyn (The Athletic) published a list of the 10 worst NHL contracts according to his model based on a ton of statistics.

It attracted a lot of attention in Montreal because, well… Nick Suzuki’s name was 9th on his list.

Right. I imagine the journalist doesn’t have the same rhetoric as of today after seeing Suzuki score 26 goals and get 66 points last year in a season of misery.

But now Luszczyszyn is back with a vengeance, this time publishing a list of the NHL’s 10 best contracts.

I have no problem with the names in the ranking found in the tweet below. But…

In my eyes, if Matthew Boldy’s name is there, Cole Caufield’s should be too:

Explaining.

Caufield signed an eight-year contract, a deal that will pay him $7.85M until the end of the 2030-2031 season.

Boldy, on the other hand, signed a new deal with the Minnesota Wild last January, a seven-year contract that will pay him $7M per year until the end of the 2029-2030 season.

In terms of production (2022-2023 season), the two players are very similar. Caufield’s (0.78 points per game) is slightly higher than Boldy’s (0.77 points per game)…

But Caufield has by far a better goals-per-game ratio (0.56) than Boldy (0.38), and we know how expensive goal-scorers are in the NHL.

I’m not taking anything away from Matt Boldy because, all in all, he’s an excellent field hockey player who celebrated his 22nd birthday in March. The Wild have a very good one on their hands.

But it seems to me that it would have been logical to see Caufield’s name in the list of the NHL’s top 10 contracts if Boldy’s was there. We’re talking about practically the same production, and Caufield earns $850,000 more than his fellow American, which is very little…

That said, the list doesn’t mean much in the end.

After all, Nick Suzuki didn’t play in 2022-2023 as a guy with one of the 10 worst contracts in the NHL, and just because Caufield is left off the list doesn’t mean he won’t be scoring goals next year, hehe.

And when it comes down to it, if Cole Caufield can become an underrated player around the league… I figure it could be a good thing for the CH.

In gusto

– It’s so, so much money.

⚽️ PSG has accepted a $332 million offer from Al Hilal. Kylian Mbappé could receive a salary of $776M in a single year.

According to @JeremyFilosa, “It’s completely sick, it makes no sense”.

🤔And what do you think about this potential monster deal❓ pic.twitter.com/8yPMkyNjZd

– 98.5 Sports (@985Sports) July 25, 2023

– Scott Wheeler re-drafts the 2020 draft.

– They bring leadership to the room.