What should the Devils' cap hit actually be?

JP Gambatese used a variety of models to get a better idea of what the New Jersey Devils' roster is really worth.

Be sure to join the Discord channel to talk hockey with our writers and the entire InfernalAccess community.

---

By JP Gambatese (@JP_Gambatese)

Tom Fitzgerald and the New Jersey Devils’ front office have done an excellent job of building a team with more talent than the salary cap would imply.

Jack Hughes is on perhaps the best contract in the NHL and players like Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, Tyler Toffoli, and Dawson Mercer have cap hits that fall well below their actual worth. 

In order to gauge what the Devils’ cap hit should actually be, I’ll be using a conglomeration of The Athletic’s market value model, current player comparables, and a GAR/dollar model based on 2022-23 statistics. 

For context, The Athletic’s model uses a weighted combination of statistics, with the ten categories being ice time, goals, assists, points, expected goals, penalty differential, offensive impact, defensive impact, usage, and GSVA (game score value added).

Offensive and defensive impact are weighted models in and of themselves, taking into account a plethora of statistics on both sides in order to determine the values.

As far as player comparisons go, I’ll be scouring JFresh charts, Evolving Hockey statistics, and NaturalStatTrick, searching for players who are in similar roles and have similar impacts, and comparing their contracts.

Finally, in order to get a concrete dollar value for an individual’s GAR, I’ll be using a pretty elementary sum of formulas. I’ll be valuing the league-wide totals first: (32 * 82,500,000) / 3374.6 – taking the league’s total cap hit for all 32 teams and dividing it by the league’s total GAR in order to determine a concrete dollar-per-GAR value (which amounts to $806,021). From there, multiplying an individual player’s GAR by that dollar amount will give a concrete “worth” for that player. 

Each of these ways of determining player “value” have their own flaws, to be sure. The GAR Model doesn’t account for missed games, and immensely exaggerates players’ worths. The latter point is also true for The Athletic’s model, though their statistics are more sound than just using GAR.

With comparables, the players' values are likely underrated just because of the nature of the NHL and how players approach negotiations. 

Using a combination of all three should provide me with enough content to make a judgment call on what I think a player’s value is. 

Now that that’s all settled, let’s take a look at what should be considered a fair market value for the Devils’ entire roster, though I’ll only be going truly in depth with…

The Best Contracts

First things first: Jack Hughes is on the best contract in the NHL, at a measly $8 million per year. Using the GAR model, Hughes’ 20.9 GAR means that his “value”  comes in at $16.85 million, over double what his current contract is. The Athletic proved to be a more realistic model, citing his market value to be $13.9 million. 

Now, searching through player comparables, Hughes’ continued success rivals that of the league’s highest paid players. His impacts are analogous to the likes of Nathan MacKinnon, Auston Matthews, and even McDavid to some extent. With that in mind, Hughes’ comparable contract in today’s NHL is around $12 million. 

Considering that, generally speaking, NHLers are well underpaid – often sacrificing their true monetary worth for winning – and that the GAR model hyper-inflates players who have good numbers, I actually think that The Athletic’s model is a pretty fair assessment here, though that too likely inflates numbers a little bit. Therefore, I’d say that Hughes’ true value falls right around $12.75 million.

Next up on the list is Nico Hischier, making $7.25 million – arguably the team’s second most valuable contract. In terms of GAR, his valuation is again hyper-inflated, at $16.35 million. His last season was incredible and The Athletic’s model reflects that with a valuation of exactly $13 million. 

Looking past this past year in isolation, his usage and impacts mirror centers like Dylan Larkin, Jack Eichel, and Anze Kopitar. This would put his contract worth somewhere in the low-9 million range. 

Again, the truth likely falls in the middle here, though I lean more towards his comparables being a fair contract valuation than the analytical models. I’d say that a ‘fair’ contract for Hischier would be about $9.75 million.