Todd Cordell
I like Marcus Kruger but I do not think he's worth the fairly lucrative contract the Blackhawks gave him ($9.25 million over three years).
Kruger is a good defensive forward who has performed reasonably well given the difficult minutes he's been assigned - he starts ~80% of his shifts in the defensive zone - but he does not produce points nor drive possession.
While Kruger is a useful piece he is pretty one dimensional - he has 13 points in his last 114 games - and I think someone can adequately fill his role for less than $3 million per season.
James Tanner Kruger brings almost no offense to the table, doesn't appear to be good at preventing shots, and has a pretty bad Corsi relative to his team.
He doesn't seem to out-perform his icetime and the contract seems expensive for a fourth line player. I do not think he is worth it.
Peter Tessier Marcus Kruger fills a role and he fills it on the Blackhawks- they are the gold standard in the NHL right now. While that contract may not be what every team would pay Kruger it's what the Blackhawks value him at. If he's worth that much to them should we challenge it?
Of course we will. But again I would suggest delineating between the open market and the Blackhawks. I looked up Kruger on the HERO charts and then I decided to compare him to a player I believed to be equivalent- Alexander Burmistrov.
Kruger gets less ice time and only really outshines Burmi in goal suppression by xGA/60 measurement. Is that worth a little over 1.5 million more per year? To the Blackhawks yes but perhaps not to many other teams.