Cost of Replacing Ovechkin

While watching the Caps vs. Atlanta (ie. watching my hyper child destroy my house), I had this interesting thought.  What would it cost us to replace Alexander Ovechkin's goal production.  I also came to the disturbing realization that Ovechkin reads as a misspelled word on a Caps blog...weird.  Anyway, what I was thinking is looking at each team in the east, what do they spend to get the same number of goals that we get from our one guy.  I wonder if we get our money's worth.

In doing this, I always took the highest priced player on the team for comparison that fit into the scoring profile.  The higher priced players are more likely to consistently score goals at this pace (most of these guys are at the top of their teams score sheets).  I also chose the quickest combinations to 13 goals.  It doesn't make much sense to try to compare the production of 7 different guys when you can do it with 3.  Besides, you couldn't fit 7 more guys on the team anyway.

For this exercise I am looking for exactly the same goal output as #8, no more and no less.

All numbers from http://www.hockeybuzz.com/cap-central/ .

So in alphabetical order by team, here we go, what they pay in salary, and to who for 13 goals.

Atlanta - Kovy (9g, $6,389,260) + Evander Kane (3g, $3,100,000) + Ron Hainsey (1g, $4,500,000) = $13,989,260

Boston - Savard (4g, $5,000,000) + Bergeron (3g, $4,750,000) + Ryder (3g, $4,000,000) + Wheeler (3g, 2,825,000) = $16,575,000

Buffalo - MacArthur (5g, $1,400,000) + Vanek (4g, $7,142,857) + Pominville (3g, $5,300,000) + Hecht (1g, $3,525,000) = $17,367,857

Carolina - Whitney (4g, $3,550,000) + Cullen (3g, $2,875,000) + Jokinen (3g, $1,700,000) + Staal (3g, $8,250,000) = $16,375,000

Florida - Reinprecht (5g, $2,050,000) + Weiss (3g, $3,100,000) + Booth (2g, $4,250,000) + Horton (2g, $4,000,000) + McCabe (1g, $5,750,000) = $19,150,000

Montreal - Cammalleri (5g, $6,000,000) + Gionta (4g, $5,000,000) + Plekanec (3g, $2,750,000) + Kostitsyn (1g, $3,250,000) = $17,000,000

Devils - Parise (6g, $3,125,000) + Zajac (5g, $3,887,500) + Rolston (2g, $5,062,500) = $12,075,000

Islanders - Moulson (6g, $575,000) + Tavares (4g, $3,750,000) + Tambellini (3g, $587,500) = $4,912,500

Rangers - Gaborik (10g, $7,500,000) + Dubinsky (3g, $1,850,000) = $9,350,000

Ottawa - Michalek (6g, $4,333,333) + Alfredsson (5g, $4,875,000) + Neil (2g, $2,000,000) = $11,208,333

Flyers - Richards (6g, $5,750,000) + Briere (5g, $6,500,000) + Pronger (2g, $6,250,000) = $18,500,000

Penguins - Crosby (9g, $8,700,000) + Malkin (4g, $8,700,000) = $17,400,000

Tampa - Stamkos (9g, $3,725,000) + St. Louis (3g, $5,250,000) + Lecavalier (1g, $7,727,273) = $16,702,273

Toronto - Hagman (6g, $3,000,000) + Stempniak (3g, $2,500,000) + Ponikarovsky (3g, $2,105,000) + Kaberle (1g, $4,250,000) = $11,855,000

Wow, I'd have to say we aren't doing too bad just paying Ovechkin $9,538,462 for his 13 goals.  Only the Islanders and the Rangers are paying less.  Besides, by having that production in just one player, it also allows us to fit the Professor onto the roster and his incredible goal pace from only one spot on the ice.