Recently auctioned off and finalized late last evening, Pierre-Luc Laflamme signed an unprecedented $22 million dollar contract with the West Kendall Platoon. With ample cap room this shouldn't put them really in any jeopardy spending wise, but what does arise is this...

Why spend so much for a player that has only cracked 50 points once?

Why spend so much for a player that has lacked consistency of what a team can expect?

What needs to be done to control outlandish auctions like the one we witnessed last evening?

Is this good for the SHL as a whole?

As a player, the big bucks are great. Love seeing it. Pay us the money. We put our bodies on the line night in and night out. In reality, our expectations have to be leveled out somewhere though. Great players can expect a pay day for sure put those come along every now and then.

At $22 million... his name better be God and he better shit-storm a six point night every night, literally you will see below.

Laflamme only cracked the Top 5 in one category last season, shots. His checking has been as consistent as my sister's period. I mean how do you go from (6) checks one season to (140) checks two seasons later, then crash back down to (34). Yes he reached back above the 100+ plateau, but does that tell you anything? It isn't dependable if it does.

So lets break this down in a more simplistic way. Value per point. We took the top point earners and broke it down for you:

Pierre-Luc Laflamme : $423,077 per point
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Dean Colt : $26,786
Griffin Simons : $34,483
Theo Kane : $37,313
Chernika Banananov : $57,692
Pedro Sarantez : $87,719
Niklas Wikstrom : $100,000
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So reviewing the above you are looking at a breakdown of what every player earns per point. Clearly establishing the drastic inflation for a one year contract. $57,332 is the average per point salary amongst these top point scorers. If you were to apply that to the expectations of the PLL contract, then you could expect Laflamme to net around 384 points this season!

So what impact will this have long term? Not entirely sure. If cap structure was little more of a challenging figure then contracts like this one wouldn't exist, nor do they need to. I believe two things can happen from this moment. Top end players will now establish their value based on last nights deal, which in the end will force the current salary cap to play a larger role or league management will look into what adjustments can be made to drive down the possibility of this reoccurring every off-season.

Regardless, still a congrats to Pierre... you played the game and won. No hate... just wondering if the Platoon will be practicing in the dark or if you will be paying the electrical bill :D

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