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Mailbag: No, Milan Lucic Does Not Justify Jordan Eberle

The Bruins made a mistake with Milan Lucic, so that exonerates the Oilers.

By Derek Zona
"Raise your hand if you're overpaid"
"Raise your hand if you're overpaid"
Harry How

I found a note in my inbox from Jordan (no, I'm not kidding) in Edmonton:

Derek,
You're never going to admit to how much you hate Eberle whatever. But there's no way you can't give Eberle when BOS gave Lucic $6 million. They aren't the same player but they have the same impact on a game. People fear Lucic and people fear Eberle just in different ways.*

No

It's completely asinine to justify one bad contract by using another equally bad or worse contract in what would be called contract relativism, I guess. The Bruins screwed up in a big way, but that doesn't mean Boston's mistakes are the Oilers to bear. I could go into this and rant about how silly this line of reasoning is, but, Tyler broke this down already:

The smart money, I think, is on Lucic never living up to this deal.

Conveniently, he also broke down the Eberle deal:

Jordan Eberle is paying paid like he’s part of the NHL elite. That’s what he has to be for that contract to make sense. All this talk of Eberle getting going rate for a 60-70 point guy is nuts. He’s being paid like an elite first liner. If he’s a second line RW in two years, it’s a poor use of resources. There is a massive gulf between what an upper tier first liner is making and what an upper tier guy in a second line spot makes. It is more than a little frustrating to hear that sort of waved away – the Oilers are a team that has pissed away money on guys for years, always giving a bit too much to people. Not a problem that looks like being solved.

Ryan asked how much Eberle's two UFA years were worth:

I used Logan Couture's RFA deal as a baseline (Couture is a better bet, by the way) and found:

This isn't entirely accurate. Using Couture's exact contracts as a baseline, Eberle's two UFA years are worth $9.125 million.

George Ays used the discount rate:

Even if you use George's compliementary rate, $8.18 million for Eberle in his UFA years when he's likely to be a second-line right wing is insane.

Jordan, the Jets just gave Zach Bogosian $36 million over 7 years, should the Oilers rush to do the same for Justin Schultz and Jeff Petry?

*I snipped a closing line from the email:

"Aside from that they gave Hall the same money and you don't want to create a jealous locker room."

It's not worth getting into the "everyone gets a trophy" approach to cap management.