There’s nothing that Leafs Nation loves to do more than to debate whether a struggling player is worth his multi-million contract, with many fans often criticizing the highest-paid players when the team falls short.
In Toronto over the past few years, one of the biggest rallying cries is that the members of the team’s core haven’t pulled their weight.
But for all the hyperbole from fans, are any of the Leafs’ top-billed players among the NHL’s worst values?
On Thursday, Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic posted his list of the 10 worst contracts in the NHL.
He admitted that while there are many bad deals out there for some underperforming players, this list took into account each player’s projected value over the remainder of their contracts and not just for the coming 2026-27 season.
“The goal here is to grade contracts empirically, with the same context being applied to each player across the league: How much value does each player bring to the table per year and over the life of the contract?” Luszczyszyn wrote, adding that his formula compared a player’s Net Rating and the expected salary of each player.
Who has the worst contract in the NHL?
According to the numbers, Jonathan Huberdeau took home the “honour” for the third year in a row.
The Calgary Flames forward is in the midst of a eight-year deal with an AAV of $10.5 million US, making him one of the highest-paid players in the league last season. He also has five years remaining on the pact, which he has failed to live up to.
The Athletic lists Huberdeau’s market value at just $4.8 million, less than half of what he earns.
Were there any Maple Leafs on the list?
There were several other players from Canadian teams on this year’s list, including Edmonton Oilers’ Trent Frederic, Jake Walman and Vancouver Canucks’ Elias Pettersson.
However, no members of the Maple Leafs made an appearance in the top 10.
Some may point to Morgan Rielly as being worthy of inclusion given his greatly declining play and his eight-year, $60-million deal — not to mention that pesky no-trade clause — but those numbers apparently aren’t as onerous as they seem.
While Rielly’s AAV is $7.5 million, that had him ranked outside of the top 100 players in the NHL last season at No. 103.
And among defenceman, he was tied with K’Andre Miller at No. 31.
On the Toronto roster, he’s now No. 2 when it comes to highest-paid defenceman, falling behind new free-agent signing Darren Raddysh, and is fifth overall on the Leafs cap sheet.
So while Rielly has seen his points total drop in each of the past two seasons — his 36 points in 78 games were 22 fewer than the 58 he had in 2023-24 — his value relative to his salary apparently remains higher than that of Pettersson, who had a gulf of $3.2 million between his cost and true worth.