What do all these players have in common besides big contracts, good looks, and hot ladies, (past and present)? They are all at or near the top of my "Big Money Gone Bad" list! Last week, Shell, over at "LetsgoCanes.com" was nice enough to share a spreadsheet she was working on that compared the dollar cost of each point scored by each of the Hurricanes. Being a lover of numbers myself, I couldn't help but play around with the spreadsheet and make a few comparisons of my own. For the most part, Rutherford is getting pretty good value from all of the Canes. The best value for the dollar is Ray Whitney who has a salary of 1.5 million and leads the team with 73 points. That comes to about $20,500 per point, one of the better bargains in the league! The defensemen obviously have the worst point per dollar ratios, but their primary job isn't scoring points so we'll leave them out of this comparison. The worst ratio for forwards on the team goes to Trevor Letowski who has a salary of $800,000 and production of 7 points. (I'm not blaming Trevor, I'm just pointing out the numbers). That comes to over $114,000 per point. Of the Canes highest paid players, Eric Cole is the worst at $78,000 per point, Staal is next at $66,000, and Williams is at $59,000 per point. Believe it or not, those are not bad numbers once you compare with others around the league.
Now, let's take a look at the pretty boys pictured above. Alexei Yashin has a contract of 7.6 million per year and he has scored 38 points so far. That makes his cost per point a whopping $200,000! Sergei Fedorov's salary is $6,080,000 and he also has scored 38 points. His cost per point is $160,000! Finally, Mike Modano's salary is a paltry $4,250,000. With his 26 points scored, that makes his cost per point over $163,000! The cost per point value from the Hurricanes doesn't look too bad right now, does it? I know that Yashin, Modano, and Fedorov have been fighting injuries, but it's not the first time these players have under-performed for their salaries. Without looking it up, I doubt that last year's numbers were much different than this years. It's really eye opening to see how much money these players earn per point! Honorable mention? How would you like to have paid Todd Bertuzzi, $5,269,000 for his 7 points of production? He played just 7 games before he pulled up lame with his bad back. That's just a measly $752,000 per point. No wonder Florida traded him!
Okay, on to Hurricanes news. Erik Cole returned to practice yesterday and skated with his normal jersey on, indicating that he might be close to returning. Laviolette said that it was still too early to tell if Cole would play Friday night. Whitney and Hedican did not skate, but were at practice. Also, according to Lord Stanley's Blog, Laviolette will not be shuffling the lineup anytime soon to allow Anton Babchuk to play. Must be they called him back to sit in the pressbox? I'm sure Babchuk won't complain too much. The difference of his salary here versus if he stayed in Albany is substantial even if he isn't playing, and no, I don't know what his cost is per point! Have a good day Caniacs!
Rush