Last night, for some reason or another, Brian Burke signed defenseman Brett Lebda to a two-year deal worth $1.45M per. I'll just come out and say that I am not a fan of the signing. Had Kaberle or Finger been moved/waived first, then I'd like it a little more. Anyways, it looks like Lebda will be our 6th defenseman for the upcoming season once Kaberle and Finger are dealt with.
That then got me thinking; Lebda's contract struck me as being too much for too little (he's 5'9"), I wonder what the average contract and performance of a #6 defenseman in the NHL is like? So off to NHL.com and capgeek.com I went to scrounge up some numbers.
To determine who was a team's #6 defenseman, I compared their TOI/G and their games played for the 2009-2010 season, and then used a little judgement to determine who was in fact that team's 6th defenseman for the majority of the season. Then once I had my list of names, I plugged them into capgeek to determine their salary cap hit. If that player was under contract, I used that figure; if they had signed a new contract beginning in the 2010 season, I used that figure; if they had their contract expire this summer and have yet to sign a new contract, I used their cap hit from the previous season.
Check out the numbers and discussion after the jump.
| Player | Team | TOI/G | Pts | $$ | w/ bonus |
| Lebda | DET | 14:59 | 8 | 1.450 | |
| Brookbank | ANA | 14:57 | 9 | 0.750 | |
| Schubert | ATL | 15:46 | 7 | 0.883 | |
| Stuart | BOS | 17:01 | 7 | 1.300 | |
| Sekera | BUF | 17:26 | 11 | 1.000 | |
| Pardy | CGY | 15:51 | 9 | 0.700 | |
| Carson | CAR | 17:22 | 12 | 0.522 | |
| Barker | CHI | 13:05 | 21 | 3.083 | |
| Wilson | COL | 16:16 | 21 | 0.552 | |
| Russell | CBJ | 18:35 | 22 | 1.300 | |
| Fistric | DAL | 14:55 | 10 | 1.000 | |
| Strudwick | EDM | 16:56 | 6 | 0.725 | |
| Kulikov | FLA | 17:56 | 16 | 0.900 | 1.325 |
| Drewiskie | LAK | 15:14 | 8 | 0.617 | |
| Hnidy | MIN | 13:32 | 14 | 0.750 | |
| O'Byrne | MTL | 15:15 | 4 | 0.942 | |
| Franson | NSH | 14:11 | 21 | 0.693 | |
| Fraser | NJD | 12:22 | 6 | 0.500 | |
| Meyer | NYI | 16:46 | 15 | 0.588 | |
| Gilroy | NYR | 16:18 | 15 | 1.750 | |
| Campoli | OTT | 17:50 | 18 | 0.633 | |
| Bartulis | PHI | 13:58 | 9 | 0.600 | |
| Demers | SJS | 15:25 | 21 | 0.543 | |
| Weaver | STL | 16:57 | 10 | 0.800 | |
| Walker | TBL | 16:09 | 5 | 1.700 | |
| Schenn | TOR | 16:52 | 17 | 0.875 | 2.975 |
| O'Brien | VAN | 17:00 | 8 | 1.600 | |
| Erskine | WAS | 15:58 | 6 | 1.250 | |
| AVG | 15:53 | 12.000 | 1.000 |
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So basically a #6 defenseman plays 15:53 minutes a game on average; scores 12 points over the course of the season; and comes with a caphit of around $1M. (Note: If you remove Cam Barker from Chicago and replace him with Jordan Hendry, the average caphit falls to $912k)
So what does that tell us about Brett Lebda and the contract he was given yesterday? Well it tells me that for a 6th defenseman, he's overpaid and under performing. In fact, per my numbers, he's now the 4th highest paid #6 defenseman in the league.
Thoughts?