OOOOH YEAH! from familyguy.wikia.com
Today we finally got some Leafs news: Nikolai Kulemin was resigned to a two year $2.8 million/year deal. This was effectively his last RFA deal and takes him to UFA at the conclusion. From reading PPP comments on today's FTB it seems that most people are content with the deal. It wasn't a "homerun" as one commenter put it, but it wasn't a bad deal either.
Kulemin was slated to go to team-elected arbitration soon and this deal stopped that process. Many NHL fans will recognize that this is quite a common occurrence. Nobody likes going to arbitration and teams and players often reach a deal beforehand. In fact there were 7 other forwards headed to arbitration this summer who have come to an agreement with their team. I have decided to compare Kulemin to them. Follow me over the jump for the comparison.
First off the players:
| Name | Team | Old Cap Hit | New Term | New Cap Hit | Ending |
| David Perron | St. Louis | $2,500,000.00 | 4 | $3,812,500.00 | UFA (2 years bought) |
| Jamie McGinn | Colorado | $680,000.00 | 2 | $1,750,000.00 | RFA |
| Mason Raymond | Vancouver | $2,600,000.00 | 1 | $2,275,000.00 | UFA (no years bought) |
| Nick Bonino | Anaheim | $693,000.00 | 2 | $700,000.00 | RFA |
| Nikolai Kulemin | Toronto | $2,200,000.00 | 2 | $2,800,000.00 | UFA (no years bought) |
| Sam Gagner | Edmonton | $2,275,000.00 | 1 | $3,200,000.00 | RFA |
| T.J. Galiardi | San Jose | $700,000.00 | 1 | $950,000.00 | RFA |
| T.J. Oshie | St. Louis | $2,350,000.00 | 5 | $4,175,000.00 | UFA (4 years bought) |
Now there production over the last 2 years:
| Name | GP | GPG | PPG | Notes |
| David Perron | 67 | 0.388 | 0.731 | Was almost killed by Thornton 2 years ago. Recovered well last year |
| Jamie McGinn | 127 | 0.165 | 0.339 | Had 8 goals and 13 points in 17 GP with Colorado after the trade deadline |
| Mason Raymond | 125 | 0.200 | 0.472 | Cutdown arbitration |
| Nick Bonino | 76 | 0.066 | 0.237 | Has looked good in the AHL thus far. Establishing himself in the NHL |
| Nikolai Kulemin | 152 | 0.243 | 0.559 | |
| Sam Gagner | 143 | 0.231 | 0.622 | |
| T.J. Galiardi | 69 | 0.130 | 0.217 | |
| T.J. Oshie | 129 | 0.233 | 0.674 |
Finally a comparison of their production over that time period versus their new cap hits:
| Name | Cap Hit Rank | GPG Rank | PPG Rank |
| T.J. Oshie | 1st | 3rd | 2nd |
| David Perron | 2nd | 1st | 1st |
| Sam Gagner | 3rd | 4th | 3rd |
| Nikolai Kulemin | 4th | 2nd | 4th |
| Mason Raymond | 5th | 5th | 5th |
| Jamie McGinn | 6th | 6th | 6th |
| T.J. Galiardi | 7th | 7th | 8th |
| Nick Bonino | 8th | 8th | 7th |
It looks to me like Kulemin is fairly paid relative to this small group of peers (if anything we actually got a pretty good deal). He has the 4th highest cap hit while having the 4th highest PPG and 2nd highest GPG. We probably got him for that slight (ever so slight) discount, because it brought him right to UFA. Oshie's contract on the other hand, was probably a little elevated for buying a bunch of his UFA years. Perron's contract was probably a little limited because of his recent major concussion.
Obviously this isn't a perfect methodology as every player isn't in the exact same point in their development (probably held back McGinn and Bonino), Raymond's situation was very unique, and Kulemin is hard to judge in general because of his two polar opposite years.
Anyway this was my quick analysis and it appears to me that Kulemin's deal was fair.
Cheers
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