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The Nashville Predators are currently sitting fifth in the Western Conference, 10th overall, riding a hot Pekka Rinne to allow the fourth-fewest goals in the league. By filling a few minor holes they could finally have all the tools required to win a playoff series for the first time in their 12-year franchise history. Despite all of this, we are putting them on the losing end of their recent trade with the Ottawa Senators where they acquired an obvious asset in Mike Fisher for a couple of draft picks. Why?
Mike Fisher is a gritty, two-way 30-year-old veteran center, on pace for score 20 goals for the fifth time in the last six seasons. He placed third in Selke Trophy voting in 2006 as the league's best defensive forward, and has widely acclaimed leadership qualities. Predators head coach Barry Trotz called Fisher "an outstanding fit" and "just what we need." ESPN's Pierre LeBrun called this trade "a perfect fit," and TSN's Bob McKenzie even called this a "great move for Nashville," tweeting that Fisher is a "good player" who "fills a huge need" and that it was "pretty obvious that Nashville was a perfect fit."
We're sorry to rain on the parade, and while all of this may be true, it's still a bad deal for the Predators.
Analyzing Trades in the Salary Cap Era
In the salary cap era, it's not enough to simply acquire an obvious asset and declare yourself the winner. Today, the winners are those who have managed their salary cap most efficiently, so you need to look at a player's contract, and that's exactly where Mike Fisher hurts the club most.
Step One in analyzing trades in the new NHL is to get the player's contract information from a site like CapGeek. In this case, we see that Mike Fisher carries a cap hit of $4.2 million for two more seasons after this.
Step Two is to get the player's Goals Versus Threshold (GVT) data from a site like Behind the Net. Here you can see the value the player brings to the team relative to replacement level.
Finally, based on the cap hit, figure out how much value the player must provide, and compare that with the value that player is expected to provide. To calculate, subtract $0.5 million from the cap hit (the cost of a replacement level player) and multiply by three. (Why three? To be competitive, a team must get 120 GVT from the remaining $40 million in cap space).
That's all the information you need to determine whether that player is a good investment or not. Quite frankly, a player's rights are simply not an asset unless they produce more than they cost, because otherwise the same funds could have been used elsewhere for greater effect.
Mike Fisher: An Inefficient Investment?
In Mike Fisher's case, a $4.2 million cap hit would require a GVT of 11.1 to break even. Unfortunately for the Predators, Fisher has averaged only 7.9 GVT over the past three seasons, is past his prime, and on pace for only 2.0 GVT this season. That means that Nashville can expect to lose at least three goals a season for two more seasons based on acquiring Fisher at this contract.
We're not concluding that Fisher won't contribute to Nashville's success; the conclusion is that Fisher is not an efficient asset. For the same cap space, Nashville could either get a much better player, or the same caliber of player but with room left over for another.
Putting all the information in a graphical format where the blue line represents what Fisher needs to produce and red what he actually produced, you can see that Fisher, even in his prime or at his very best, can just barely justify the cap space invested in him. Even in this best case scenario, he isn't helping the team, he's just not hurting them.
It's more realistic to expect the 30 year old to decline over the remaining couple of years on his contract, using up space that could have been used on another asset. That's exactly what hurts a team in the long run.
A quick look at Fisher's Snepsts Comparables helps further reinforce the unlikelihood of his returning to previous form and helping Music City break even—Fisher is currently on pace for the tail end of projections.
Age Player Season GP G A PTS
30 Dick Duff 1966-67 51 11 11 22
28 Scott Mellanby 1994-95 48 12 12 24
31 Martin Gelinas 2001-02 72 14 17 31
29 Mario Tremblay 1985-86 56 13 15 28
29 Robert Lang 1999-00 78 23 43 66
32 Steve Heinz 2001-02 73 16 17 33
29 Shawn McEachern 1998-99 77 33 27 60
29 Brian McLellan 1987-88 75 12 25 37
28 Vic Hadfield 1968-69 73 24 39 63
28 Rene Bourque 2009-10 73 28 30 58
WORST (Duff) 82 18 17 35
BEST (Hadfield) 82 27 44 71
AVERAGE 82 22 28 50
VUKOTA (82 GP) 82 22 29 51
CURRENT PACE 82 21 15 36
What the Predators really need is someone who can efficiently help their power play, which has been consistently among the league's worst for four years now. Clearly, Fisher won't help there, either.
2010-11: Power Play Points per 60 minutes, this year
2006-10: Power Play Points per 60 minutes, average of previous 4 years
Forward 2010-11 2006-10
Martin Erat 5.2 3.8
Sergei Kostitsyn 4.7 4.1
Patric Hornqvist 3.6 3.2
Joel Ward 3.0 2.8
Colin Wilson 3.0 2.8
J.P. Dumont 2.2 4.0
Steve Sullivan 1.7 4.2
David Legwand 1.5 3.0
Mike Fisher 1.1 2.8
The Predators already have over two full lines of options proven to produce better with the man advantage than Fisher. They also already have the third-best penalty kill in the league, and have allowed the fourth-fewest goals, so regardless of price, how could they get maximum value out of a defensive specialist?
Popping Champagne in Ottawa
Meanwhile in Ottawa, Senators fans are popping champagne bottles. Not only did they shed a contract that could have cost them over 20 goals over the next two seasons, but they also picked up a first round draft choice, and another pick next season. Though it's harder to place an exact value on a draft-choice, we can start by bookmarking Iain Fyffe's latest article—it's potentially a windfall.
At this very moment, there are probably Sens fans calling their friends and relatives in nearby Toronto, wondering why their own local team is actually swapping bad contracts with the Ducks when they can simply dump them on a team so desperate for short term playoff success that they're willing to give up their long term health. Even though they ought to be showing Leafs fans more mercy than that, you can't blame them for their celebratory move.
Lessons Learned
It's not our intention to rain on anyone's parade, but simply to add a cold hard splash of objective reality. From all accounts, Mike Fisher is a fantastic guy, and we hope he does very well in Nashville. But even at his very best, the Predators would be better off using that same cap space either on an even better player, or a player just as good with room for one more.
In the new NHL, it's not about acquiring assets. It's about managing a limited commodity as efficiently as possible, and that's where the Preds came up short.
Robert Vollman is an author of Hockey Prospectus.
You can contact Robert by clicking here or click here to see Robert's other articles.
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On The Beat (02/10)
9 comments have been left for this article. 
Not to say that I agree or disagree with your assessment, but I do have trouble with analysis of asset value vs. asset cost that don't take into consideration the actual cap floor. There is a range of $16M ($43.4-$59.4M) within which an NHL team must spend. To look at replacement level in this context may then be misleading as it is against the rules of the game to staff a team full of replacement level players. The concept works in baseball as a team can, in theory, play a full roster of chumps making the minimum. A 23-man roster, all making the NHL minimum salary ($525,000) comes to just over $12M. That's $31 million short of the minimum. In that sense, the average salary of a team member must be at least (just short of) $1.9 million.
In a sense, the rules of the CBA practically stipulate that some players must be overpaid in order to make the cap minimum. Therefore, I posit that to efficiently spend to the rules, a team must be wise regarding whom to overpay. To fully analyze this deal, one must begin by looking at the cost in assets to acquire (1 pick, plus considerations) and how the market was shaping up. The cost of Fisher (~1.5 times the average) is, in my mind, tertiary.
Are you saying that a team has to overpay players in order to stay over the cap floor?
Do you think that a team that was under the cap floor would be competitive? Make the play-offs?
Even if your answer is yes, why overpay some players to bring it up over the cap floor? Wouldn't it make more sense to use the available cap space to get players that would make the team even better?
I just don't see why it matters if there's a cap floor or not. Even if the money had to be spent, would you rather have:
1. Fisher at $4.2
2. Someone much better than Fisher at $4.2
3. Fisher at $2.1 and another comparable player at $2.1
I don't see why you'd want #1.
Because there is not an unlimited pool of players with "reasonable" salaries to acquire. Because if you want to improve your team, you first have to look at how that player will fit with the team as already constituted, and then to figure out if you can fit him in under cap constraints (both floor and ceiling) and then to worry about value.
Here's an idea for you. Look at all players currently slated to be free agents this offseason. find "reasonable" salary points for them and build a competitive roster within the constraints of the cap. You can assume a cost-of-living bump to the current cap of say $2.
I, too, think this was a less-than-optimal trade for the Predators. But not because of the dollars. Because I think they could have got him for a 2nd rounder and decent prospect (along the lines of a Matt Halischuk or Andreas Thuresson) instead of a 1st and a conditional.
By definition, there must be a sufficiently-sized pool of players with reasonable salaries. The calculation is based on the GVT teams are currently producing per dollar of cap space.
By definition, adding up the GVS of every player in the league gives you zero.
Granted, competition with other teams could mean that the best available player is inefficient, but I don't see how the cap floor has any bearing on a GM's decision-making.
Is there a league-wide GVS list I can reference?
Behind the Net (http://www.behindthenet.ca) has the latest league-wide GVT ratings for every player. Cap Hit information can be found on various sites, including Cap Geek (http://www.capgeek.com) and the formula is:
GVS = GVT - 3 x (CAP - 0.5)
Sorry that there's still a little legwork involved in analyses like these. And thanks for reading, I really appreciate both your interest, and contributions.
I also have last year's league-wide GVS available in spreadsheet format, and even a variant of GVS based on Alan Ryder's Player Contributions, if you prefer that. Any readers that would like this can email me at the link at the end of the article.