Are Sidney Crosby, Steven Stamkos and Evgeni Malkin underpaid?
Considering the current situation, even posing such as a question is laughable to hockey fans. But all humour aside, there's an argument to be made.
Last year, an economist told Sportsnet's Michael Grange that Miami Heat forward LeBron James could have commanded US$30 to $40 million per year as a free agent in a free market system. Instead, he'll make around $17.5 million for the coming season.
Here's a sabermetric example courtesy of FanGraphs via ESPN The Magazine: between 2009 and 2011, Albert Pujols produced $31.1 million in value per season for the St. Louis Cardinals, a figure tied to his wins above replacement (WAR) numbers. And yet Pujols' salary never exceeded $15 million over those three seasons.
You could certainly argue that the NHL's upper echelon was financially pinched by the recently expired collective bargaining agreement. Rich clubs like the Toronto Maple Leafs and New York Rangers were hamstrung by the salary cap, unable to simply outspend their rivals. Individual players, meanwhile, couldn't earn more than 20 per cent of the cap's upper limit.
On the other hand, the CBA bolstered the league's middle class. Sure, there was a salary cap in place, but the salary floor ensured that cheapskate owners couldn't field inexpensive teams (the salary floor rose to $48.3 million from $21.5 million in just seven seasons). And last season, the minimum salary level was set at $525,000, a substantially higher figure than under the previous CBA.
As a result, the average NHL salary increased by roughly 60 per cent over seven years. The sum of the top 25 salaries, however, increased by about 48 per cent.
What's apparent is that the gap between the NHL's top-earner and his average peer has narrowed by some measures over the past 20 years. The gap peaked in 1997, when Joe Sakic earned about 1,350 per cent more than the average player. Last year, Brad Richards' league-leading salary was roughly 390 per cent greater than the average one. Under the most recent CBA, the gap never exceeded 500 per cent.
It's worth noting that hefty signing bonuses were responsible for some of the big contracts handed out in the '90s. For example, when Joe Sakic earned $17 million for the 1997-98 season, his contract was front-loaded with a $15-million bonus. (Colorado was forced to match an offer sheet from the Rangers). The New York Times wrote that Sakic's contract was one of many that "helped doom" the 1995 labour agreement.
Still, the substantial pay gap in the '90s wasn't driven by meagre salary growth for the average NHL player. During all but one season in the '90s, the average salary increased by more than 10 per cent over the previous season. If anything, a handful of elite players were the beneficiaries of spend-happy franchises during an era with no salary caps.
If today's NHL players dissolved the union -- thereby creating a league of no salary caps and subsequent bidding wars -- it would create a lucrative environment for star players. But it would likely hurt the league's burgeoning middle class.
The same economist told Grange that such a scenario might "squeeze the players in the middle and lower classes as money would trickle upward, not to mention threaten jobs as smaller-market teams would be destabilized."
Of course, it's possible that players like Sakic and Sergei Fedorov were overvalued in the late '90s. But it's also possible that cap restrictions have created the opposite effect. Consider that Paul Kariya and Peter Forsberg led the league with $10 million salaries in 2000-01. Ten years later, the top salary was the same.
Still, players like Crosby and Stamkos aren't exactly suffering. But as they stand next to union head Donald Fehr and lend credence to his message, they're likely fighting for a deal that stands to benefit their less-talented peers as much as (or more than) themselves.
And if you doubt that for a second, ask yourself this: in a free market, what might Crosby and Stamkos be worth to the Maple Leafs?
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