Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
Because points are easily quantifiable and legitimately arbitrary. It is extremey difficult to quantify the value of individual players relative to his team-mates on a team-to-team basis, and the reason for that is because individual contributions to winning are subtle combinations of hundreds of factors in each and every game played.
Agents can readily make the case that X is a larger number than Y, and while a team may believe that Player X's contribution to winning is not as significant as Player Y's, it is difficult to counter because the numbers just simply do not exist to show it.
To put it another way: if the highest scoring players were always the most valuable, then it would stand to reason that the highest scoring team would win the Stanley Cup every year. That does not happen.
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Contracts take 2 sides. Sure, it's easier for agents to make the case that production should mean dollars. But there have to be GMs on the other side of the table agreeing with that valuation approach in order for it to actually become the standard. And it seems they have for the most part, but you still see highly productive 1 dimensional forwards getting less money than a lot of other guys.
Players that produce like Johnny Gaudreau are scarce in today's NHL and their value on the open market reflects that. If Treliving feels like Gaudreau's market value is higher than the value he provides to this team, he should recognize the opportunity to arbitrage and move him to a team who values him more - the bounty on a guy like Johnny would be significant. Like Hall +, Mackinnon +, Marner + Nylander etc.
Edit: Lastly - teams that score the most goals make the playoffs and do win cups very often. The top 8 teams in scoring all made the playoffs.