The Coyotes countdown resumes today with #28, Christian Dvorak.
Christian Slater is an actor with the same name. We are counting down the top 50 movies as well, but none of them include Christian Slater.
Christian Dvorak is an interesting study. He is on this list (his greatest acomplishment), he was the team's first line centre, and he only makes $4.5 million, and he's in the first year of a six year deal.
Dvorak just turned 24, so it seems like a good bet.
But it's hard to say.
In the NHL, under the current salary cap rules, a team should only pay a player more than a million dollars per year if a) that players is elite or b) that player has an elite facet to their games or c) that player could potentially become elite.
Now "elite" in this sense doesn't mean Connor McDavid level. It means that a player can be part of the roughly 10% of NHL players that significantly have a positive impact on the game, relative to other players.
In the NHL, there is a salary cap, and the gap between the 100th best player and the 1st best player is about 4x the gap between the 100th best player and the worst player in the league.
This means that if all you get out of Dvorak is what you got this year, the contract is a failure.
I like the deal, because the Coyotes have to make and win bets in order to reasonably hope to compete.
In a situation where Chychrun, Schmaltz, Keller and Dvorak all became elite, they'd be able to run the league if their owner let them spend to the cap.
For those contracts to work out realistically, probably two players will have to become top 100 NHL players, which seems like a fair bet.
But taken alone, should a bet like that have been made on Dvorak?
38 points in 70 games, playing first line minutes and over 400 of them with Taylor Hall that is extremely bad production.
Often times a low shooting percentage will show us why a seemingly good player gets's bad results, but Dvorak's on ice shooting percentage is a reasonable 9% and his PDO is over 100.
He just isn't a first line talent, and stapling him to Taylor Hall will be a bit reason why the Coyotes will most likely miss the playoffs.
Dvorak's numbers are not bad. When he is on the ice, the Coyotes are a over a 50% team across the board.
But 1.72 points per game, when you're playing with one of the NHL's best players, just doesn't cut it for the top line.
But I strongly suspect that if the Coyotes had a first line centre that other teams game planned against, that Dvorak could put up the production needed to justify his contract.
He isn't talented enough to play 1C, but he is a good enough player to produce enough to warrant his deal.
As for his ranking on this list, well somehow he is the 28th all-time highest scorer in franchise history, despite the fact he missed most of last year with an injury.
all stats naturalstattrick.com
Top 50 Movie Countdown
50: Limitless
49: Oh Brother Where Art Though?
48: Role Models
47: the Rock
46: Mission Impossible Franchise
45: Nicholas Cage Man Tetrology
44:Heat
43: The Art of Self Defense
42:Walk Hard
41: The Winter Soldier
40:Taken
39: The 6th Day
38: Groundhog Day
37. The Batman Trilogy - Christopher Nolan
36: Jackie Brown
35: Gremlins
34: Who Framed Roger Rabbit
33: Speed
32: Adventure Land
31: Eyes Wide Shut
30: Semi Pro
29. Endgame/Ragnorak Trilogy
28. Baby Driver
Cancel Kevin Spacey all you want, doesn't make him anything less than the best actor alive.
Baby is the coolest character ever - he's half deaf, always listens to (good) tunes, drives like a maniac, and follows an ethical code that only he cares about.
He doesn't talk much, he's a DJ and his girlfriend is a signing waitress.
This movie has it all: a top 5 all-time soundtrack, cool cars, Kevin Spacey, John Hamm, babes, action, and tunes.
This is one of the all-time great movies ever made, and that should be self evident. You can quibble with ranking it a lowly 29, but from here on out all the movies are of top-ten quality.
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