The Athletic, or more precisely Dom Luszcyszyn, performed their annual NHL contract efficiency ratings. For those unfamiliar with the column, the goal is figuring out every player’s market value over the remainder of his contract, comparing it to what he’s actually being paid and then figuring out the likelihood of the contract being a good deal. Then it’s put all together for each team to see which ones are spending money the most efficiently.
In 2024, the Rangers ranked sixth. This season, their rankings plummeted all the way to 24th. Whether you agree or disagree, which I will, with his rankings and evaluations of each contract – and by extension the team – Dom uses a holistic model to make his calculations, which means each team has the same criteria applied.
Rangers contracts aged poorly the past year
For New York, as written in the column, part of the issue is simply the result of aging, where players like Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trocheck and Mika Zibanejad all took a step back in 2024-25. In the cases of Zib and Trocheck, no disagreement. Both suffered through poor seasons, especially in the case of Zibanejad, who looked lost for long stretches. While Trocheck certainly didn’t have the same time of campaign, I don’t think any of us expected him to replicate his success from the prior season.
The same can be said for Panarin. After posting a career-high, by a large margin, 120 points in 2023-24, regression was expected. He “fell” to 89 points, slightly off from what was anticipated. Now if Dom had said, Panarin didn’t drive or carry play as he did the prior season, I wouldn’t blink an eye at that comment. In the case of all three, I don’t think age had anything to do with their declines.
Will Cuylle clearly took a major step forward. Rating the two-year deal he received compared to market value as just a B undervalues the “discount” on the contract. Granted, he still has to live up to the terms of the agreement. But if you asked 100 Rangers’ fans after the season if they would be good with that dollar figure, 100 would have said yes.
On the blue line, no question the Will Borgen deal looks bad. The contract actually looked worse four months ago. But compared to others given out in free agency, $4.1 million a year looks a lot better than it once did.
Gavrikov ranking seems off base
My major disagreement is on the Vladislav Gavrikov rating. Most felt that the Rangers got a healthy haircut on what Gavrikov could have received. Add in his expected pairing with Adam Fox, who has an undervalued deal, and what general belief that he will bring to the table compared to the contract signed, and a C+ is way too low.
The rating to a certain extent is driven by Alexis Lafreniere and Igor Shesterkin. If both live up to their contracts, New York will shoot up the list. If they don’t, the team will rightly stay in this general range.
I don’t subscribe to the Atlantic, so I have never seen a chart like that. I agree, some of those ratings seem strange, and I’m just a stupid hockey fan, so I don’t know what the value of those ratings are anyway . All I care about is wins and losses 🙂