by Adam GretzFiled under: Canadiens, Predators, Sharks, Wild, NHL Free Agency, NHL Economics
The biggest transaction in the NHL last week involved a player -- Mikko Koivu -- who wouldn't have been eligible for unrestricted free agency until after the 2010-11 season. On Thursday, the Minnesota Wild inked their captain to a whopping seven-year, $47 million contract extension that sparked the inevitable debate of whether or not he's worth such a lucrative deal. Critics of it can easily point to the fact that Koivu has topped the 70-point plateau just once in his five-year career, and now carries one of the 25 largest cap hits in the NHL. But as general manager Chuck Fletcher pointed out (via Puck Daddy): "To define Mikko by his statistics is to miss the point of what he's all about."And that, of course, would be correct. Koivu's game is about way more than offense, as he's also a tremendous defensive forward, while also playing in a system in Minnesota for much of his career that, for lack of a better word, limited what he was able to do offensively.
But let's be honest, when you're paying a skater (especially a forward) nearly $7 million per season, you're doing so for a certain level of offense. It's also going to open the door for plenty of comparisons around the league. So let's hop right into it and take a look at Koivu's deal compared to contracts signed by five other centers this offseason (note: I'm going to exclude the deal signed by Washington's Nicklas Backstrom, simply because he was so far away from unrestricted free agency when he signed his new contract. All players included were either unrestricted, or one year away from being unrestricted): Patrick Marleau, Tomas Plekanec, Matthew Lombardi and Joe Pavelski. I'm also going to include Ryan Kesler, who would have been a restricted free agent had he not signed a new contract in March.
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