Stanley Cup Playoff Team Songs: 2017

"During the each of the last few springs, I've undergone a small personal project in which I compile playlists for each postseason. I also assign every team an individual song to capture the flavor of that team's season and potential postseason run. Notable past tracks include Howlin For You (The Black Keys) for the 2012 Stanley Cup Champion LA Kings, Welcome to the Black Parade (My Chemical Romance) for the 2014 Stanley Cup Champion LA Kings, and Runaway (Kanye West) for the 2015 Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks. "And that's quoting me!

For 2017:

(EC1): Washington Capitals: All Hands Against His Own (The Black Keys)
(EC2): Pittsburgh Penguins: Victorious (Panic! At The Disco)
(EC3): Columbus Blue Jackets: Ride (Twenty One Pilots)
(EC4): Montreal Canadiens: Under Pressure (David Bowie, Queen)
(EC5): New York Rangers: Empire State of Mind ft. Alicia Keys (Jay-Z)
(EC6): Ottawa Senators:  The Fallen (Franz Ferdinand)
(EC7): Boston Bruins: Walk This Way (Aerosmith)
(EC8): Toronto Maple Leafs: Starboy (The Weeknd)

(WC1): Chicago Blackhawks: Famous (Kanye West)
(WC2): Minnesota Wild: Rock You Like a Hurricane (Scorpion)
(WC3): Anaheim Ducks: The Kill (Thirty Seconds to Mars)
(WC4): Edmonton Oilers: Savior (Rise Against)
(WC5): St. Louis Blues: Go With The Flow (Queens of the Stone Age)
(WC6): San Jose Sharks: Mind Eraser (The Black Keys)
(WC7): Calgary Flames: Fire It Up (Thousand Foot Crutch)
(WC8): Nashville Predators: 10 A.M. Automatic (The Black Keys)

The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday: One Fan's Take on the Lightning's Salary Strategy

Prescient Lightning fans have been dreading this day for a few years- the day after the Tampa Bay Lightning 2015/2016 season, and the day when future salary cap headaches become present-day problems requiring immediate attention. We were hoping, obviously, it would be an issue Steve Yzerman and co. could tackle while tasting from Lord Stanley's chalice; as we know, the Lightning's elimination last night at the hands of the Penguins means that will not be the case. No matter the result of this season, though, we knew that at its conclusion, Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, J.T. Brown, Alex Killorn, Vladislav Namestnikov, Cedric Paquette, and Nikita Nesterov would require new contracts (with the captain, of course, potentially hitting unrestricted free agency), and the decisions made on these players would require consideration of the new deals needed for Victor Hedman, Ben Bishop, Andrei Vasilveskiy, Brian Boyle, Slater Koekkoek, Andrej Sustr, and Jonathan Drouin after 2016/2017 (with Hedman, Bishop, and Boyle hitting the open market) and for Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat after 2017/2018 . To put it bluntly, there are massive decisions at hand for the Lightning, and the choices made going forward will impact the club for years- this was acknowledged by Yzerman himself today when he said, "The next two summers are going to define our team for the next 7 or 8 years. It's going to define the core of our team."

In this post, I will play Mr. Yzerman and attempt to see what those decisions will look like. To begin, it is useful to 1) say outright that it is impossible in today's salary cap NHL to retain all of these players along with the other skaters more fully secured, and 2) to show exactly what the Lightning's salary situation looks like as of today (for more detail, head to Cap Friendly or General Fanager, which is where the data comes from):

At the December 2015 Board of Governors meeting, Gary Bettman gave a rough projection for next season's salary cap as rising up to $3 million; it rose $2.4 million after 2015. I projected the 2016/2017 salary cap at exactly $74 million (as Cap Friendly does) and raised it $2.6 million in the three subsequent seasons shown. Also notable is my assumption of a Matthew Carle buyout- frankly, I cannot see any other path forward for the Lightning. Trading Carle requires him to waive his no movement clause, and failing to buy him out given his play and scratching during much of the Eastern Conference Final completely ties the Lightning's hands cap-wise. If he is on the 2016/2017 roster, I will be absolutely shocked.

With the framework established, it becomes necessary to make a clear distinction between a Stamkos-less future and one in which Stamkos is re-signed. I advocated re-signing the captain in essentially all salary scenarios last summer; my opinion has not changed, but somewhat happily, I am revising my projection for his average annual value downwards from what I had him pegged in July. This is based on the Lightning's reported offer to Stamkos of 8 years, $8,500,000 AAV (per Sportsnet's Friedman); obviously, Stamkos did not accept that pact, but it makes me believe a potential contract would probably not exceed the entirely arbitrary on my part $9.7 million. Of course, there is every chance that salary simply does not meet Stamkos' demands and that he signs elsewhere this summer. In that case, Yzerman's job gets a lot easier (though of course, it costs the Lightning one of the best players in the NHL):

Lightning Roster Make-Up: Stammergeddon Meltdown Scenario

There are three immediate takeaways, the first of which only applies to this scenario and the latter two applying to both:

 

1) The core (less Stamkos) stays intact.

Of course, this depends on what your exact definition of the Lightning core is (there's one chess piece sized 2017/2018 absence we'll touch on further on), but without Stamkos, it becomes fairly easy to retain TB's biggest stars such as Hedman and Kucherov along with secondary firepower like Killorn and the other two Triplets. The fit is snug, especially in 2017/2018, and there are some sunny assumptions sprinkled into these deal projections- for instance, Andrej Sustr and/or Slater Koekkoek could outperform a $2 million price tag next season and necessitate a better deal, or Hedman may sign for something more like $9.5 million, or even Namestnikov may ink for more than the $2.5 million I have him pegged at. All in all, though, the figures are realistic, and for the next 4 seasons, the Lightning would field a similar squad as the one that just took an elite Penguins team to Game 7 in the conference finals and which is certainly capable of competing. Next season especially would be crucial with the entire gang still here and $4 million in spare change available for a 1 year UFA/trade deadline acquisition, but it's hard to see this group ever missing the postseason- it's a quality roster. (Italicized figures indicate replacement players- for instance, I prognosticate Brian Boyle's departure being filled with an AHL/ELC replacement in terms of the roster spot; specifically, Paquette would take over his lower line center role.)

 

2) What will the goaltending situation look like?

One thing is for certain- after next year, it is almost guaranteed that the Lightning cannot retain both of their current excellent goalies. Not only are their obvious unpalatable salary conditions to keeping both Vasilevskiy and Bishop- there's also the very real chance that an expansion draft occurs next summer, wherein teams may only protect one goaltender. My choice, as is evident, is to allow Bishop to walk after next season, roll with Vasy, and sign a backup for $1.5 million (about the going rate for an NHL backup). It's as much a function of the salary realities as it is faith in the young Russian who performed so admirably in TB's last playoff series- I cannot envision Bishop's next contract being any less than $5.5 million, and the cap savings are absolutely crucial. $4 million is a generous projection for Vasilevskiy's next contract, but his potential has been highly regarded since he was drafted and he has done nothing to frustrate those expectations. If Bishop is your choice, you must both sacrifice another forward like Paquette and Namestnikov to get under the cap and lose Vasy (obviously)- for me, 2017/2018 and beyond Vasilevskiy is close enough to Bishop at that point in time to justify losing Big Ben (who would, by the way, be on the wrong side of 30).

3) 86's next deal could go a number of ways.

I would not blink if the Lightning announced tomorrow that they'd given Nikita Kucherov the same deal they gave Steven Stamkos when he was a restricted free agent- 5 years at $7.5 million. I would be similarly unfazed if Tampa Bay extended Kucherov through the remainder of his RFA years at a lower price tag and revisited his contract later, partially as a function of all the other expiring players the Lightning must also deal with. I split the difference here and give #86 a significant investment that doesn't quite put him among the game's elite in terms of salary but which pays him handsomely. Personally, I would love to sign Kucherov to a pact as long as possible and to hope to get a steal of a deal akin to Hedman's contract or John Tavares' splendid 6 years $5.5 million AAV agreement inked back in 2011- to me, Kucherov is that good. Perhaps the Lightning could do that and lock up Kucherov for 6 or 7 years at this proposed $6.5 million price tag- there a lot of possibilities and a wide range of salaries his deal could end up looking at. It depends both on the negotiation and preferences of the Kucherov camp and the strategy of the Lightning.

If #91 decides to stick with the Lightning, things get significantly harder. In that case, the Lightning would have the chance to have a core group of Stamkos, Kucherov, Hedman, Stralman, Drouin, and more all in their prime. That's formidable. But there would be costs and forfeitures throughout the roster- and lots of trust in young players and low-cost options. Injuries to the top guns would be fatal. But it would be possible, and the just the possibility of those names together long-term is extremely appetizing. It would have to look something like this:

Lightning Roster Make-Up: Flight of the Stamkostross- but at what cost?

Obviously, there was a lot more activity and players moved to make Stamkos work with the cap (for starters, my projection made it necessary to sign an even lesser backup goalie to reinforce Vasilevskiy in the first year of the new Hedman deal). Immediately apparent are:

 

1) Farewell to some useful Tampa Bay skaters- already.

My projection sees the Lightning deal Alex Killorn and fill his spot with a cheaper player either acquired in the trade or signed to an estimated (and also arbitrary) $2 million AAV, and further bids adieu to the likes of Nikita Nesterov, Cedric Paquette, and JT Brown, with all players being replaced by cheap AHL/ELC players (your Mike Blundens and Jonathan Marchessaults). Perhaps one of the latter three could be re-signed at a reasonable cost and dealt the next season to make way for Victor Hedman's new deal (given the over $1 million in space on the projected books for next season), but in any case, the Lightning will certainly lose one of the Triplets 2.0 (or go in a radically different direction from what I have here- think someone major being traded) sooner rather than later. I think Killer, Tyler Johnson, and Ondrej Palat are all excellent 2nd line players. I also think one would have to be a casualty of signing one of the league's most dynamic players in Steven Stamkos to a long-term contract.

2) Buyouts and trades galore- now and in the future.

The worst thing a GM can do in sports is go to their owner and ask them to spend their money on a player specifically not to play for their team. And yet, Steve Yzerman (for all his talents) has made doing so a necessity to retaining Stamkos thanks to all of the no movement clauses and no trade clauses he has administered over the years to declining veteran players. Most tangibly, I am afraid that the TBL GM will be reticent to part with former teammate Valtteri Filppula- whose departure I view as an absolute necessity to the adequate efficient Stamkos reaction plan. As his shots and expected goals stats and on-ice and off-ice measures (and rate production) show, he is a declining, potentially below average forward who also makes $5,000,000. Eating his buyout hit (the number shown is the buyout plus an ELC/AHL salary) when not doing so probably means losing a cheaper forward like Vladislav Namestnikov (see player card- courtesy @IneffectiveMath's HockeyViz) is crucial to keeping Stamkos; Val cannot be traded thanks to a no movement clause in his contract he likely would not waive. Similarly, the heavy cap hit of Jason Garrison will also need to be bought ought to pave the way for Hedman's new deal- and can also not be traded thanks to a full no trade clause. Further down the line, Braydon Coburn will also become a superfluous piece- I was surprised he was re-upped for so long, but Yzerman did save some cap hit with Coburn's extension. In any case, the Lightning have created a perilous situation in terms of potentially suboptimal veteran contracts (I didn't even consider trying to move Ryan Callahan's onerous deal), and will have to navigate them efficiently to keep the young, prime core intact.

 

3) The youth and organizational depth will be tested.

If you thought the Lightning had to dig deep into the recesses of the organization this season, get used to it- losing all of those secondary pieces to keep Stamkos will require the team to do the same going forward. Players like Brayden Point and Adam Erne look promising, and will have to produce at young ages to give the Lightning legitimate secondary scoring. Anthony DeAngelo and Dominik Masin (or other young defenders) will also need to find their game quickly- and of course, I've already assumed that Slater Koekkoek is NHL-ready now. There are tons of ELC/AHL salary assumptions all over my contract schedule- they're optimistic in terms of players being able to perform at NHL levels but necessary to fit Stamkos, Drouin, Hedman, and co. Alternatively, the Bolts could trade another Triplets 2.0 player to balance the depth- but I feel the allure of Johnson and Palat backing up the other talented forwards is worth the roster being more skeletal at its lower levels.

Overall, it would be highly challenging for Yzerman to keep all of these key pieces- already, it's fair to assume someone significant will have to exit. But the payoff would be incredible- the Lightning could have one of the most stacked forward groups in the game. As this year's Stanley Cup Final shows, deep forward groups win championships; if Tampa Bay holds Stamkos and beyond, they will have just that.

Summarizing:

The Lightning have a number of significant salary decisions to make both this summer and in the coming years. The relatively easy days of managing this roster, and the room to make free agent splashes and mistakes, are gone. Tampa Bay can continue this compete window and extend it- but doing so will require smart moves and careful decision-making. There are paths forward both with and without Stamkos, but in any case, the Lightning will likely be forced to surrender a quality piece, much like the Blackhawks have been required to do multiple times during their compete window (most recently, Brandon Saad was an example of this necessity). Tampa Bay has not quite had the success of Chicago yet, but it can emulate its example by making savvy player trades and acquisitions. While it is disappointing that the Lightning failed to earn a championship during the early days of this core, the potential remains for this roster to compete for years to come- as long as the choices of this summer and the immediate future prove to be the correct ones.

Stanley Cup Playoffs 2016: Team Songs

During the each of the last few springs, I've undergone a small personal project in which I compile playlists for each postseason. I also assign every team an individual song to capture the flavor of that team's season and potential postseason run. Notable past tracks include Howlin For You (The Black Keys) for the 2012 Stanley Cup Champion LA Kings, Welcome to the Black Parade (My Chemical Romance) for the 2014 Stanley Cup Champion LA Kings, and Runaway (Kanye West) for the 2015 Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks.

For 2016:

(EC1): Washington Capitals: In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)
(EC2): New York Rangers: My Body (Young the Giant)
(EC3): Tampa Bay Lightning: Losing Touch (The Killers)
(EC4): Florida Panthers: Young Volcanoes (Fall Out Boy)
(EC5): New York Islanders: I Wish I Could Steal a Sunset (Death Letters)
(EC6): Pittsburgh Penguins:  Unstoppable (Foxy Shazam)
(EC7): Detroit Red Wings: Thnks fr the Mmrs (Fall Out Boy)
(EC8): Philadelphia Flyers: If I Had a Tail (Queens of the Stone Age)

(WC1): Chicago Blackhawks: Stronger (Kanye West)
(WC2): Los Angeles Kings: Don't Bring Me Down (Electric Light Orchestra)
(WC3): San Jose Sharks: Monster (Imagine Dragons)
(WC4): St. Louis Blues: BURN IT DOWN (Linkin Park)
(WC5): Anaheim Ducks: This is War (Thirty Seconds to Mars)
(WC6): Dallas Stars: Highway Star (Deep Purple)
(WC7): Nashville Predators: Lonely Boy (The Black Keys)
(WC8): Minnesota Wild: Lost + (Coldplay ft. Jay-Z)

Steven Stamkos, Albatross: why his mega-extension will be a productive use of the Lightning's salary

Samuel Taylor Coleridge killed the albatross.

The large bird was once considered a sign of good fortune among sailors and seafarers, but Coleridge's 18th century poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, eventually reversed popular perception to consider the albatross as a symbol of an inescapable weight of one's own wrought. Indeed, the metaphor has even filtered into sports, where an "albatross contract" hamstrings a franchise for multiple seasons as wasted salary space. David Clarkson? Albatross. Vincent Lecavalier (Free Vinny)? Albatross. Avoiding an albatross has become akin to fighting the injury bug or battling a cold streak.

This characterization of the albatross, though, is entirely unfair. Before the poem's prominence, an albatross was seen as aiding and lifting a group, not anchoring it- and for good reason; the bird, in fact, is one of nature's most efficient energy users, as it sustains flight only through wisely exerted soaring. Similarly, an NHL team can efficiently soar to great heights with an albatross contract- though in my rehabilitated definition of an albatross contract, the bird's name signifies only substantial salary and seasonal commitments, with the effects of that commitment varying. The term and large cap charge can even become beneficial to a team stocked with an albatross or two, as we will see later on in this post.

Enter Steven Stamkos. The Lightning center is the team's cornerstone, and Tampa Bay has enjoyed 7 productive and highly salary efficient seasons from the 2008 1st overall pick. Stamkos has been everything the Lightning needed from a franchise altering top choice, but the captain now requires a contract extension that figures to be one of the largest in NHL history. The specter of an enormous salary cap charge already seems to loom over the Lightning, prompting speculation and worry over future cost-culling measures made necessary by the mega-deal- but in fact, management and fans alike should be welcoming the new deal, not dreading it. Massive forward contracts propel teams or neither help nor harm them more than they sink them, and Stamkos and his expected figure seem a good bet to trend towards positivity. To illustrate this, let us first consider Stamkos' fellow albatrosses and their current statuses on their own franchises.

The Flown Paths of Current Albatrosses:

Salary Efficiency of Top Forwards

To further explore Stamkos' future effect on the Lightning salary cap, I considered the top 39 forward salary hit players (in other words, all those who carry a cap charge above 6 million for the 2015-2016 season) against my previously explored Goals Above Replacement per Percent of Cap figure (for more on GAR/% if you're not familiar, check out my previous FanPost here on Raw Charge). 3 seasons of GAR numbers were used to increase the sample of play without retreating far enough into the past to consider older players' bygone results and to help reduce noise from issue seasons (like the shortened 2013-2014 Steven Stamkos campaign); the abbreviated lockout season was adjusted for to achieve this result.

The results were far less sobering than I anticipated, especially after Chicago's forced disassembling as a result of the Toews/Kane extensions. Few of the deals here are truly fantastic; after all, the average efficiency is in line with Ryan Callahan's of this past season (which isn't as bad as it sounds, considering his produced GAR showed him to have a borderline career year), but most of them also avoid starkly bad territory, which I consider to be anything below 0.80. More than half float above the perfectly acceptable 1.2 GAR/% mark, and the ones that don't mostly belong to aging players whose production has tailed off (not applicable to the 25 year old Stamkos, whose max deal will see him through prime to post-prime but still undiminished seasons) or to players who have never flashed Stamkos' elite talent. The only true comparable players are Phil Kessel and Patrick Kane, and while Kane's situation is slightly troubling and may represent the worst-case outcome for the Stamkos extension, Kessel is not quite as effective as one may think- in fact, his best Goals Above Replacement numbers pale in comparison to Stamkos' and his defensive play statistically speaking is much worse than even the middling Stamkos.

To contrast, Corey Perry's inoffensive super deal and Getzlaf's favorable long-term pact together on the internal cap Anaheim Ducks (both figures, by the way, in the top 10 of cap hits, where Stamkos' extension will certainly land) showcase the advantage of the albatross. Consistent elite play over multiple seasons dovetails neatly with enormous cap hits that dwindle in how much percentage of salary cap they occupy over time (due to the constant salary cap limit increases), allowing the team to carry them as weighty but unobjectionable in early seasons and enjoy them as stealthily cost-effective ones in later seasons. Perhaps a better example of this ideal- the Getzlaf and Perry deals are too fresh at their ages to be adequately comparable to the young Stamkos- are the fantastic forwards of another California team: the San Jose Sharks. Questionable moves elsewhere aside, the Sharks have created an amazing situation for themselves from a forward salary standpoint; Joe Thornton's once jumbo average annual value now settles 24th among all forwards as his play remains at a superstar level, and Patrick Marleau followed a similar schedule for his own contract. Meanwhile, San Jose has repeated the process with great deals for Joe Pavelski and Logan Couture that will only get better as the % of cap continues to slide for both. Producing these albatross contracts has actually allowed San Jose to do more business in other areas of roster management rather than less, contrary to what many expect to happen with these colossal agreements.

Considering these hefty deals, then, has shown that super forward salary commitments have produced favorable efficiency situations just as often as they have produced unpleasant ones, and utilizing their application effectively pays huge dividends for franchises not only on that asset but on creating space for other assets as well. Further, even the mid to poorer tier of these contracts are palatable should they be encountered; teams like the Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Rangers have more than made it work with superstars on average efficiency deals like Evgeni Malkin and Rick Nash. Relatively few completely franchise crippling transactions of this category exist, and the risks of them occurring is outweighed by the benefits of enjoying an efficient one or even a middle-of-the-road one. The forward albatrosses have overall been much less precarious than perceived.

Of course, it's possible none of this will apply to Steven Stamkos. But if it does (and it should), the future looks bright for the Lightning because projecting the course of Stamkos' contract and play looks acceptable at worst (akin to Nash/Malkin) and wonderful otherwise even with cautious estimation.

Forecasting Stamkos' Flight:

Projecting the Contract and Play of Steven Stamkos

In the top left corner of this image, Stamkos' past performance and contract are shown mainly to convey what realistic expectations for his Goals Above Replacement should be but also to illuminate his past efficiency (I excluded his rookie season because 7 year old results from an extremely young player under a befuddled coach and regime seemed irrelevant to consider). The top right showcases my conservative salary cap limit projections. Modest $2 million increases are assumed; should my estimations be correct, the salary cap ending year 2021 will have increased by $10 million in the 5 seasons following the 2015-2016 campaign. This increase is less than the $12 million increase from season 2010-2011 to season 2015-2016, which included a shortened lockout season reducing revenue and the recent malaise of the Canadian dollar, so calling it safe may be an understatement; I expect a much higher upper limit in 2020-2021 especially with expansion looking inevitable (as expansion would fill the league's financial coffers), but am deliberately acting pessimistically so as to err on the side of undervaluing the Stamkos extension's efficiency.

The meat of the information lies in the GAR/% prognostications for the first 5 years of various possible cap charges with three different GAR estimations- one optimistic and based on his early play, one cynical and grounded in recent results, and a career average which lies in the middle. I show the three different average annual values (I highly doubt Stamkos' AAV will exceed $12.5 million or fall much below $10.5 million) and three different GAR forecasts to illuminate the majority of the possible outcomes and to allow the reader to make their own conclusions as to which outcome is most likely.

I also included the GAR/% averages of the other top forwards as a handy reminder of what the typical top forward's efficiency looks like and limited the projection to the next 5 seasons (despite the extension likely lasting 8 seasons) because extending beyond year 5 could be quite problematic. Stamkos' play could be much different then, the error from my cap projection will compound over time and be unacceptable to even consider, and there's always the possibility of Stamkos' camp deciding to limit the term to less seasons.

With the forecast itself explained, let's consider its results and implications. My first thought is honestly excitement. Even with this outlook's worst scenario (12.5 charge with Stamkos performing as he did over the past three seasons ["3 yr avg 2 in the graphic"]) the contract never veers far into particularly bad status and stabilizes over time; as I mentioned earlier, it is most comparable to the Evgeni Malkin and Rick Nash situations, which require asset massaging elsewhere on the roster but still heavily contribute to the success of Stanley Cup contenders. Meanwhile, the bullish consideration puts the extension into the sphere of current Ovechkin/Crosby now, Datsyuk/Thornton later- those are 4 game-breaking contracts and not unrealistic visions for a talent of Stamkos' caliber. When a process indicates the poorest outcome as flatly workable and the best outcome as elite, that process's result is cause for celebration.

Even further to consider are the circumstances of my prognosis and of the details of Stamkos play, which both support the idea that the Stamkos albatross has the potential to be very efficient for Tampa Bay. As I mentioned, the forecast intentionally limited the salary cap to a lower figure; one can realistically expect the actual cap to beat this predicted placeholder, and if it does, the Stamkos contract will fill less of the percentage of TB's salary cap than this projection shows. What's more is that Stamkos' career GAR and "3 year average 2" GAR are hampered by his broken leg season of 2013-2014, which caused him to miss a large chunk of the season and limited his effectiveness in any games afterwards. All players deal with down seasons and injuries, and this is reflected in the use of the 3 year averages during the initial analysis of the top 39 salaried forwards, but none is as significant as a broken leg that essentially snapped what was looking to be a career season along the lines of his earlier 2010-2012 work into his worst results.

Given this information and my own personal evaluations of Steven Stamkos the hockey player (in my opinion, he is more than capable of playing like he did early in his career and more likely to do so than to remain merely a very good star as he is right now), I consider Stamkos GAR averages from his early career to be more likely to manifest themselves in the future than his recent numbers, and also see no reason to expect a deterioration in these results over the life of the contract, especially in its early years. Predicting Stamkos to produce 23-25ish Goals Above Replacement seasons at least during the first five campaigns seems most realistic and likely, and this places the extension's efficiency firmly between the GAR/% of the "average 1" and "career" models- wherein the upcoming Stamkos deal is a decently efficient contract (1.55ish GAR/% year 1, 1.75ish GAR/% year 5) and certainly an upper tier albatross even if it pushes closer to $12.5 million (I expect the average annual value to be around $11.5 million myself, but consider any number between $10.5 million and $12.5 million as mostly equal in probability of occurrence).

Overall, then, and in simpler terms, the fair expectation of Steven Stamkos' imminent new contract and his performance over that contract shown above sees his deal as cost-effective when compared against fellow superstar forwards and the league as a whole. He is more likely than not to be a positive asset for the Lightning not only as a raw win producer but also as an efficient usage of salary resources.

Summarizing:

Managing Steven Stamkos' massive contract won't be easy, despite all that I've explored above. Even as an efficient allocation of resources, the contract's mere present value weight combined with the existing other unwieldy deals the Lightning are saddled with guarantees that difficult decisions will have to be made with concerns for the salary cap.

However, stomaching a few tough years and a sub-optimal trade or two (or failure to pursue an efficient trade/free agent) with the super deal will be very much worth it for Tampa Bay, and signing the captain to whatever deal he demands is a no-brainer with this analysis in mind. The sheer ability that Stamkos brings to the table, the high likelihood of this talent persisting over the course of the contract, and the simple fact that the salary cap upper limit increases with every passing season means that the middle to late seasons' money spent will be earmarked extremely well. Not only does his projected contract seems to stack up well against all players- it also seems to stack up well against players of similar cap situation and talent as well.

In the future, the Lightning will be able to enjoy a top tier talent performing at an effective price, and will be able to use extra salary space elsewhere thanks to a disproportionate amount of production coming from one source of salary cap space. Just as the albatross flies efficiently using its great weight as an asset rather than a detriment, so too can a franchise operate efficiently by signing a valuable asset to a long-term and weighty albatross contract. Steven Stamkos is the perfect candidate to be that efficient albatross for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Going to WAR: Evaluating the Lightning salary situation in terms of cap efficiency

This post originally appeared as a FanPost on Raw Charge on July 8th, 2015.

On the eve of what was supposed to be yet another display of misguided GM largesse, I stumbled upon an excellent THN article by Dominik Luszczyszyn (@omgitsdomi on twitter) which evaluated the then-upcoming free agent class in terms of win contribution and expected salary. While July 1st and beyond has proven to be surprisingly sane, I was still hooked with Dom's modus operandi for the article- its marriage of salary cap management and player value forms a line of thinking rightfully considered the crux of modern NHL competitiveness. Decision making in today's NHL is constantly grounded in the two main areas of "how good is Player X" and "how much is Player X's salary cap charge", and synthesizing the two is the basis for player acquisition and management.

And yet, while we can look at a contract like David Clarkson's and laugh at its palpable competitive unwieldiness, and harp on the importance of productive young players still locked into cheap entry-level contracts, I've seen very little in the way of numerical evaluation that expresses these obvious truths. The largest roadblock to doing so is the inability to confidently state just how good a particular player is with an actual figure- Sidney Crosby is fantastic, and we have crude counts like points and time on ice along with more sophisticated and predictive measures like adjusted shot attempts, rate stats, and linemate impact measures to show how fantastic he is, but no measure can encapsulate exactly how many 'fantastics' he is, especially when comparing across positions.

That roadblock still exists, but the hockey community has taken the first steps in chiseling through it. I'm specifically referring to the absolutely fantastic work undergone by war-on-ice.com; true to their name, they have developed a Wins Above Replacement statistic comparable in utility to baseball's more mainstream measure of the same name. I could write an entire article about the mechanics of war-on-ice's WAR and its worthiness as a tool or lack thereof, but I'll instead defer to their own blog's 11 part series explaining their methodology and rationale, as it is far more eloquent, detailed, and knowledgeable about the stat than I can attempt to be. What's important to this post is the assumption that the measure has significant importance and value- those unfamiliar with the idea should at least skim the explanation, and those who see little value in WAR will see little value in this post as a result. 

With that said, I undertook the relatively simple task of combining the results from war-on-ice's WAR measurements with contract information in an attempt to evaluate the efficiency of the use of Tampa Bay's salary cap. The resulting key figure- something I coarsely dubbed "GAR per % of cap" (which is a literal description)- is something I doubt is original with me, but I've never seen it anywhere else and feel that at the very least it will have some worth as a rough counting figure.

"GAR per % of cap" is exactly what it says on the tin- it divides "Goals above replacement" (the metric created by war-on-ice one step before they convert to wins above replacement; I used it because the results are more aesthetically pleasing with GAR) by the percentage of the salary cap a player's contract fills. (Why percent cap rather than the direct figure? As the cap rises, a player's cap hit becomes less onerous; this is obvious, but many fans and analysts retain an outdated idea in their head of what a 5 million AAV player is.) While I used the player's 2014-2015 cap hits and regular season GAR, there would've been value in considering certain players' current contracts instead, or in using a 3 year GAR average, or even applying an aging deflator to GAR like Dom did. The goal of this post, though, is introductory and exploratory in nature so I kept it simple.

 Here's the data, along with term and status details for the Lightning players.

There's a lot to digest here, and indeed I don't see this as anywhere near my last post about cap efficiency. However, when I finally produced the relatively finished product you see here, there were some obvious conclusions to draw:

• Holy mackerel Nikita Kucherov. An insanely productive 2014-2015 season and basement salary figure (low even for a market UFA 4th liner/entry level player) makes Kucherov's GAR per % of cap 15.46. Although this is a new measure and therefore we have no reference for the relative impressiveness of that figure, I can say with high confidence that this was the highest mark for any NHL player for this past season. I browsed through the first few pages of forwards, defensemen, and goalies sorted by GAR hunting for other cheap ELC players, and though a few forwards came close to matching #86, Kucherov was still the most efficient individual use of salary cap space. What's more is that only Kuch and Anaheim defender Sami Vatanen continue to operate at the low salary figure for 2015-2016 among the elite GAR per % of cap players of this past season (elite defined conveniently by myself as Vatanen and above and including other names like pre-extension Vladimir Tarasenko, Jake Muzzin, and John Klingberg; I could've included Cedric Paquette but I am not confident enough that there aren't others in his GAR efficiency range I have yet to consider), meaning that the Lightning continued to enjoy the efficiency for this offseason (and utilized the saved space wisely with the Erik Condra signing). The argument that Nikita Kucherov is the most valuable asset for the 2015-2016 season isn't an absurd one based on these results.
• The aforementioned tenet of team construction's reliance on entry level contracts is already well-established in casual and advanced settings, yet the results for the Lightning still manage to further hammer this point home. The T and O in TKO unsurprisingly yield a high return on small cap frontage, and cheap effectiveness in the form of Paquette and Namestnikov exists as well. The contracts are short and capped by restricted status, so the Lightning won't be able to exploit the flexibility for long- but in the meantime, their existence fuels this competitive window. Figuring out how to keep these players operating relatively efficiently (around the ballpark of Steven Stamkos and Alex Killorn's GAR per % of cap hit) will be key to keeping that window extended. All of this is obvious, yet useful to see in a measurable manner.
• At first glance, the Lightning defense seems to be shoddily constructed from a salary cap standpoint; however, further investigation shows the make-up to be at least league average. As much as I am mind-blowingly impressed by war-on-ice's creation, I fail to believe that Michael Raffl's 2014-2015 season (among many others, and Raffl of course enjoyed a fine under-the-radar campaign) exceeded Victor Hedman's in value; indeed, Hedman's entire career seems diminished by WAR. A piece of that 2014-2015 paucity may be explained by Hedman's early season broken finger, but a quick glance at his linemate impacts and HERO chart on ownthepuck.ca describe a player far outperforming a $4,000,000 contract. Further, the GAR metric seems to undervalue defenders as a whole; I fished around many other team's defensemen and found far more egregiously negative values on multiple teams. Indeed, the only true albatrosses lie at the bottom of the page (though Jason Garrison is not a more negative asset than Kucherov is a positive; I couldn't quite construct an acceptable way to measure the below replacement level players on the GAR per % cap scale, which is the reason for the cartoonish number), and though Carle and Garrison are ugly players to consider from a salary efficiency standpoint, they are forgivable mistakes. 
• Lightning captain Steven Stamkos sits surreptitiously in the middle of the Lightning efficiency situation, but I haven't forgotten about him. With his upcoming extension imminent and his WAR figures surprisingly lower in his past three seasons than in his early career, Stamkos will prove a key piece to the Tampa Bay salary puzzle and I plan on exploring the different scenarios and their implications in a separate post. What is worth noting is that Stamkos' GAR salary efficiency is in line with the top cap hit players' salary efficiency marks and still would be at upwards of $10,000,000 in average annual value, though the giant will be easier to work around with better play from Stamkos.
• On a final note, I am extremely pleased with the free agent work done by the Lightning front office during the past two offseasons. While the team suffered with the relative dud that was the Brenden Morrow acquisition, GM Steve Yzerman has now hit pay dirt on two consecutive Canada Days- on a day, no less, when many executives annually make their biggest mistakes and where Yzerman has already erred from an efficiency standpoint with Carle and, to some extent, Filppula if Val is unable to stabilize his performance. The Anton Stralman signing of last summer and the Condra affair of this summer both sit among the entry level contracts in terms of efficiency. That is a commendable feat and in stark contrast to most July activity, which in most estimations produces a ton of 1.0 and below Goals Above Replacement per percentage of salary cap deals, spawns a sizable number of negative beasts, and creates very little situations as efficient as high performing entry level contracts.

In the future, I look forward to delving deeper into the nitty-gritty of these numbers while also making some league-wide evaluations. In particular, it will be interesting to see this past season's truly most valuable players to have in an organization and to appraise individual situations like Stamkos'. In any case, I'm excited to combine player value and salary cap management to truly study which teams are acting as competitively as possible, and which players best aid a success-minded organization competing in the salary cap situation.

I would like to mention and credit again the contributions of The Hockey News, Dominik Luszczyszyn, and war-on-ice.com, as I feel like this post is, in some manner, just an extension of their ideas and efforts.