NHL’s best contracts: no Canadiens player in The Athletic top-15

Dose
Crédit: Nick Suzuki celebrates goal with teammates against Carolina Hurricanes.

You may have heard of Dom Luszczyszyn.He’s a columnist for The Athletic who uses statistical models to analyze players and contracts, andit was he who, a few years ago, ranked Nick Suzuki among the worst contracts in the league. Let’s just say it was never one of the worst contracts… and the captain’s last few years prove it.On this subject, Luszczyszyn analyzes NHL contracts every year according to his model. He calculates the surplus value a player brings to his club in relation to his annual salary.Obviously, this does not take into account entry-level contracts. Andas for the summer of 2025, the columnist’s top-10 list doesn’t include a single player from the Canadiens. There are five honorable mentions… so you could say in the top-15, in fact.

[content-ads]Since Nathan MacKinnon and Leon Draisaitl are on the list and recently signed a contract with a very high annual salary, don’t think it’s just the guys who took “discounts” who are in the ranking.

What it tells me is that, while the Canadiens have some excellent players who have signed contracts that benefit the Canadiens, there are no MacKinnons or Draisaitls with big contracts in Montreal. But I don’t think you needed The Athletic’s rankings to figure that out. As good as the Habs’ top forwards are, they’re not at the same level. Will Ivan Demidov change that? We’ll see. [spacer title=’en rafale’] – Contract in Winnipeg.

– CF Montreal wins,

puts

– Wow.