What Is Tyler Bozak Money?

@darrendreger - I am told that Bozak will command better than 5 (million)

— TSN Radio (@TSN1050Radio) April 16, 2013

I am told that that is freaking ridiculous and would be an over payment of Gomez proportions. In my opinion, if Bozak's camp is asking for over five million dollars a year, they can go plead their case elsewhere. Also if Bozak is asking for much less than that, they can go ask elsewhere. What I'm trying to say is Tyler Bozak is probably one of the most overrated player in the NHL today and I think the Leafs would be better off parting ways with him. But let's say that the Leafs do exactly what we all fear they will and re-sign Tyler Bozak; what would an honest price for the man they call baby carrot Flowzak be?

WARNING: MATH CONTENT

So to figure that out, I thought looking at Bozak's comparables on the ice and their contracts could help develop a baseline. What I did is use hockeyreference.com to find all forwards with more than 150 games played over the past 3 seasons (including this one), with a ppg rate between 0.5 and 0.6 as Bozak himself has a 0.53ppg rate. (I removed Marcus Johansson as he's the only player on an ELC contract) I then took those numbers and put them into a spreadsheet of my own so I could tabulate things like G/60, A/60, and Pts/60 (Note: I couldn't find an easy way to make these even strength points only so it's only total points). Then I went on capgeek and recorded the caphit and contract type for these comparable players and calculated a stat to determine production per dollar value; Pts/60/$M. (I removed Marcus Johansson as he's the only player on an ELC contract without a second contract signed.)

Here is that spreadsheet. - What is Tyler Bozak Money?

It's too big to duplicate here so I'll just give you the basics:

• Bozak is 44 out of 46 for P/60 and only in front of two guys who play Dave Tippett hockey in Phoenix.
• Fellow Leafs Nikolai Kulemin and James Van Riemsdyk make the list with much better production rates.
• Average caphit for this group is $3.385M overall, $3.456M for UFAs, and $3.332 for RFAs.
• The only players making over $5M are Tyler Seguin (next season) and Ryan O'Reilly, two young stars being paid for potential, and Brian Gionta whose name is constantly brought up when talking about terrible contracts.
• The rest of the top earners column is full of gross over payments (Ville Leino, Erik Cole, David Jones) or spend on great two-way players like Brooks Laich, Tuomo Ruutu, and Brenden Morrow which Bozak most certainly is not.
• Using the average value for P/60/$M (0.644) and Bozak's P/60 of 1.65, a contract that's spot on for his production compared to his peers would only be $2.568M AAV, which I think is pretty spot on for someone I see as nothing more than a 3rd line center who's good at faceoffs.
• So a contract worth over $5M would be at least a 200% markup on Tyler Bozak's true value
• I also won't get into it too much but Hockey Analysis has IPP (Individual Points Percentage; the % of points a player has a hand in when goals are scored with them on the ice 5v5), and Tyler Bozak comes in dead last with an IPP 55.3% for 1st line forwards in the NHL over the previous two seasons. Dead last.....on a line with Phil Kessel and Joffrey Lupul. Think about that.

Well that's why I think Tyler Bozak Money is, and if he won't play for that or less then he can GTFO. What do you think? Take the poll below and give your opinion in the comments.

What, in your opinion, is Tyler Bozak Money?