The Definitive Guide to Salary Cap Mismanagement

It is my pleasure to announce the publication of my second book, TheDefinitive Guide to Salary Cap Mismanagement: The Worst 15 Contracts Signed by Each NHL Team (2005-2020), an analytical deep dive into the greatest free agent blunders in the salary cap era. Inside you will learn answers to questions like; why are the Pegulas so mad? Why hasn't Scott Howson been offered another GM job? Why was Brian Lawton fired after only 18 months running the Tampa Bay Lightning? 

WARNING: May trigger symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder among sensitive fan bases.

This is the sequel to my book Hunting Bargains in a Salary Cap World; completing my 2-part series titled "How to Win or Lose in NHL Free Agency". The first book pumped the tires, the second lets the air out. The 450 best and the 450 worst, plus additional bonus chapters on the Vegas Golden Knights and disasters waiting to happen. Originally this project was intended to be one big book, but when it became clear that it would be over 1000 pages long, splitting it into 2 separate manuscripts became a necessity just for the file size alone.

My obsession with ranking contracts has been building up over the past decade on this blog, starting first with annual lists of the finest and vilest deals in the league, evolving into team by team ranks. Those past versions are marginally different than what you’ll read here. The updated order was established in collaboration with an NHL scout, who completed his own ranks that helped determine the final product. We even spent an entire round of golf deliberating 40 contracts that were only “borderline” bad, rendering a verdict of guilty or not guilty; ensuring that everyone was worthy of inclusion.

The majority of the writing was completed in June, July and August during the Covid lockdown, with some updates based on how the 2020 bubble playoffs played out. The one thing you won't find in this book are Stanley Cup rings won while under any of these contracts, unless that player watched most of the games from the press box. Given this rule, it complicated my experience watching the 2020 playoffs. The first draft of the book was already complete, but some would inevitably need to be deleted. In the end, Yanni Gourde, Tyler Johnson, and Ryan McDonagh were all removed from the final publication.

While every precaution was taken to ensure that no player was falsely convicted of stealing money and wrongfully imprisoned in these pages, there will undoubtedly be those who prove me wrong. Predicting the future is hardly an exact science, especially in the field of human performance. Therefor anyone who reverses their trendline and starts earning their money, their convictions will be overturned and a public apology will be issued.

One conviction that won’t be overturned is the number one worst contract that anyone has signed in the last 15 years, Vincent Lecavalier, who narrowly edged out Rick DiPietro for the pole position. A preview of the stat graphics that you’ll find in these books is provided below, complete with a customized basket of comparables and year-by-year econometric analysis.

 

Let’s take a journey together down the boulevard of broken dreams, and learn why General Managers get fired. The most reliable path to the managerial unemployment line is wasting an owner’s money in free agency, and no other book will offer a deeper look into the causes of those dismissals. Enjoy!