Grading the 11 Highest-Paid NHL Players This Season

It's good work if you can get it.

Though even the lowest-paid full timer in the NHL makes a living most would envy, the other end of the spectrum is reserved for the priciest of the pricey talent.

No fewer than 39 players are drawing at least $10 million in salary this season and admittance to the top 10 in the category requires an annual haul of $12 million in 2023-24, with a top-end price tag of $16.5 million.

Nevertheless, it may shock you to realize that neither the league's consensus No. 1 player (Connor McDavid) nor its ranking Hall of Fame legend (Sidney Crosby) are on the list. McDavid is making "just" $11 million this season to tie for No. 17 while Crosby is getting by on the mere pittance of $3 million, tied for 358th.

Though surely jarred by those figures, the B/R hockey team pressed forward to focus on the high-enders and assess each with a grade for their on-ice performance this season.

There are actually 11 players included thanks to a four-way tie for the eighth-highest salary at $12 million and they're presented in reverse salary order (and sometimes reverse alphabetical order) from T-8 to 1.

Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought in the comments.

It takes a hockey fan to know and appreciate Zach Werenski.

The 26-year-old Michigan alum was picked eighth overall by Columbus in 2015 and was a full-time player a season later, playing 78 games and producing 47 points from the blue line on the way to a third-place finish in Calder Trophy voting.

He's toiled in relative obscurity in middle Ohio, reaching double-digit goals in each of the five seasons in which he's played more than 50 games. He's played 43 of the Blue Jackets' 55 games this season and has been the team's most consistent player with .73 points per game and a plus-4 rating while averaging better than 24 minutes of ice time.

He's making a high-profile $12 million paycheck this season and if he were in a bigger market he'd be a household name.

Grade: B

This can't be what the Devils had in mind when they sent four players and three draft picks to San Jose to get Timo Meier in a pre-deadline deal almost exactly a year ago.

Now 27 years old, the ninth overall pick in 2015 (one slot behind Werenski) had 35 goals in his last full season with the Sharks and netted 40 (31 for San Jose, nine for the Devils) last season. He's played 43 of New Jersey's 56 games this season and has just 10.

Could he find himself as the cutline-chasing Devils make a late-season push for a playoff spot? Sure. But unless he puts on a show soon, the deal that's paying him $12 million this season and $70.4 million through 2030-31 is going to feel bust-like.

Grade: D

Adam Fox is an example of what happens when a third-round pick pans out.

The New York native was plucked at No. 66 overall by Calgary in 2016 and spent 10 months as property of the Carolina Hurricanes, too, before a spring 2019 deal that sent him to the Rangers for a pair of picks.

To say it's been a prudent move for the New York brass would be an understatement.

Fox was a top-five rookie scorer in 2019-20 and a Norris Trophy winner a season later, the first to pull off that feat since a guy named Bobby Orr. He was a first-team All-Star in 2023 and has maintained that level this season with 46 points and a plus-12 rating in 47 games.

If all grades were this easy, anyone could do it.

Grade: A

He's a Selke Trophy winner. He's a Lady Byng winner. He's a two-time All-Star Game participant. He's a point-per-game producer. He's a team captain.

In other words, Aleksander Barkov is everything you'd expect from a $12 million man.

The versatile 28-year-old scored 16 points across 21 games in Florida's surprise run to the Stanley Cup Final last spring and he's among the reasons the Panthers look ready to repeat the run this time around.

His 54 points in 51 games are fourth on a loaded team while his 20 power-play points are third and his plus-22 rating and 56.5 percent rate in the face-off circle are both second.

If he's the first to hoist the Cup in June, it should surprise no one.

And it'll make the team-leading salary look like a bargain.

Grade: A

Speaking of salaries, we move up a rung to discuss Alex Pietrangelo.

If he were a free agent this summer at 34, there's an excellent chance he wouldn't command the $61.6 million contract he signed with the Vegas Golden Knights in 2020.

But that doesn't mean he's not a valuable player.

He helped St. Louis win a Stanley Cup before leaving the Blues for the Nevada desert and he skated his second parade lap last spring when Vegas beat Florida.

So while his statistics don't have him among the top-10 defensemen this season—he's on pace for five goals and 43 points, his lowest season-long total since 2018-19—the leadership presence and nearly 24 minutes per night on the ice make $12.3 million not seem so costly.

Grade: B

Another player, another salary rung.

Washington sniper Alex Ovechkin is the first of a trio of players making $12.5 season, and the 38-year-old is getting his in the third year of a five-year, $47.5 million deal from 2021.

He's won a Stanley Cup and he'll likely break Wayne Gretzky's all-time goal-scoring record in a Capitals uniform, so much of what he's being paid these days is an honorarium to what he's provided the franchise since arriving in 2005.

A desultory season has shown flickers of promise in recent weeks as the prolific Russian has netted eight goals in his last nine games after scoring just eight in his first 43. He won't get to 50 for the 10th time and the team has some work to make the postseason, but the "Great 8" is far better for the city and the league when he's productive.

Grade: C

The second and (spoiler alert) most productive of the three players making $12.5 million, Kirill Kaprizov has been a Midwest phenom since he debuted in Minnesota in 2020.

Twenty-seven goals and 51 points in 55 games earned a Calder Trophy and showed "The Thrill's" potential and he's done nothing to discount things since, scoring 47 and 40 goals in two subsequent seasons and establishing a pace for 37 goals and 90 points in 2023-24 despite missing seven games.

He leads the Wild in several offensive categories, including assists, points, even-strength goals, power-play points, game-winning goals and ice time (among forwards), so it's difficult to fathom where a team four points off the Western playoff pace would be without him.

Not quite an Ovechkin 2.0 for Russia, but still a pretty good follow-up.

Grade: A

If you're perusing lists of the NHL's least-palatable contracts, there's at least a chance you'll stumble across the name Seth Jones.

The Texas-born defenseman was the fourth pick in the 2013 draft and spent his first two-plus NHL seasons with Nashville before heading to Columbus in early 2016. He flourished with the Blue Jackets and did his best offensive work in middle Ohio, including a high watermark 57-point season in 2017-18.

He was traded again and headed to Chicago in the summer of 2021, immediately signing the eight-year, $76 million deal that's paying him $12.5 million in 2023-24 for a stat line that's thus far included a single goal and 16 points, and a minus-15 rating, in 42 games.

It's a competitive challenge with a young, developing team and his average ice time of 25:44 is third in the league, so Jones is serving an important role. But the salary number is going to seem excessive as long as the numbers stay where they are.

Grade: D

Dougie Hamilton has a completely credible NHL track record.

The 6'6", 230-pounder from Toronto has been one of the league's more prolific defenders for years and he became one of its highest-paid players in 2021 when he left Carolina to sign a seven-year, $63 million deal with the New Jersey Devils.

He was that player last season with a career-high 74 points in 82 games for the league's most surprising team and seemed ready to approach those numbers again before a pectoral injury and subsequent surgery all but ended his 2023-24 season.

Hamilton had 16 points in 20 games early on and perhaps would be considered worth the hefty $12.6 million price tag this season had he continued at that pace, but his absence and the blow it's dealt to the New Jersey offense lowers the grade precipitously.

Grade: F

It's not every player that can make $90 million seem cheap.

But David Pastrnak has done that and more.

The 27-year-old Czech was the best player in the league not named Connor McDavid last season, establishing career-highs in goals (61), assists (52) and points (113) to earn the eight-year deal whose salary begins at $13 million, second in the league, this season.

He's on pace to start the contract with a 51-goal, 116-point season for the Bruins, who are first in the Atlantic Division and chasing a second straight Presidents' Trophy, and he's in the top 10 in every significant statistical category—including goals, assists, points, points per game, even-strength goals, even-strength points, power-play goals, power-play points and shots.

If that doesn't warrant an elite grade, nothing does.

Grade: A

No one is making more money this season than Nathan MacKinnon's $16.5 million.

And, though you might get an argument from the Auston Matthews and David Pastrnak camps, there's a strong case to be made that no one's played better either.

Now 28, he was the first pick in the 2013 draft and graduated to the elite class in 2017-18, reaching point-per-game status for the first time with 97 in 74 and not looking back since while adding a Lady Byng and a Stanley Cup to the Calder Trophy he won as a rookie.

Still, 2023-24 has been his magnum opus thus far, with the 6', 200-pound center working at a pace that'll get him to 48 goals and 131 points by the end of the season, both career highs.

If the Hart Trophy were awarded in February, he'd have to clear shelf space.

Grade: A