The NHL’s Most Overpaid Players

With the NHL preseason officially kicking off next month, fans are feeling the nerves and wondering whether their newly signed players will live up to expectations, and whether underperformers from last season pick up the slack. But which of them are the most overpaid, and who will bring the most value to the team?

A study conducted by Casino Guru USA identified the league’s most overpaid and most valuable players through analysis of 2026/27 salary cap hits and 2025/26 Point Shares (PS), assigning each one a final score out of 100.

Key findings

• The Calgary Flames’ Jonathan Huberdeau ranks as the NHL’s #1 most overpaid player, scoring 88/100 with a cap hit of $10.5 million and the lowest PS in the top 10 (2)
• Darnell Nurse of the San Jose Sharks and Vancouver Canucks’ Elias Pettersson tie for second place with scores of 80/100, followed by the Edmonton Oilers’ Jake Walman in fourth with a score of 75/100
• The Edmonton Oilers’ Mattias Ekholm ranks as the #1 player with the best value and scores 14/100, earning a PS of 8.6 and a cap hit of $4 million
• The Vancouver Canucks take the title of the NHL’s most overpaid team with an average score of 58/100, while the Carolina Hurricanes rank #1 best value and average 41/100

The top five most overpaid players

Jonathan Huberdeau of the Calgary Flames ranks as the NHL’s most overpaid player, scoring 88/100. Huberdeau scored just 10 goals and 15 assists in the 50 games he played before his hip surgery, contributing to the lowest PS in the top 10 of 2 - and with a high cap hit of $10.5 million, that equates to a staggering $5.2 million per PS.

Darnell Nurse, who was traded last month from the Edmonton Oilers to the San Jose Sharks, takes the second spot with an overpaid score of 80/100. With a cap hit of $9.2 million, Nurse played all 82 games yet only scored 7 goals, resulting in a PS of 3.8 – that works out at $2.4 million per PS.

Also in second place with a score of 80/100 is Vancouver Canucks center and forward, Elias Pettersson. While he played fewer games than Nurse (74 in total) and scored more goals (15), he has the highest cap hit of the top five most overpaid players at $11.6 million, and has a PS of just 3.5, with 68 giveaways last season.

The Edmonton Oilers’ Jake Walman takes the fourth position, scoring 75/100. Despite only playing 53 games, Walman recorded 60 giveaways overall – and with a cap hit of $7 million, that works out at $2.9 million per PS (2.4).

In fifth place is Sean Couturier of the Philadelphia Flyers with a score of 73/100. In the 78 games Couturier played, he recorded just 36 points last season, down from 45 in the previous season – and his $7.8 million cap hit translates to $3.1 million per PS (2.5).

Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs last month after leaving the Florida Panthers, also shares fifth place with a score of 73/100. Bobrovsky’s cap hit is slightly lower than Couturier’s at $7 million and his PS is higher at 5.5, but in 52 games, he allowed 156 goals – in fact, he ranks 61st among all goaltenders in the league with a GAA of 3.07 from last season with the Panthers.

The most valuable players

On the other end of the scale, Mattias Ekholm of the Edmonton Oilers tops the list as the player with the best value, with the lowest overpaid score of 14/100. Ekholm’s GAR of 10.61 is the 16th highest of all defensemen in the league and his PS is an impressive 8.6, and combined with a cap hit of $4 million, that equates to $0.5 million per PS – for comparison, the NHL’s most overpaid player Jonathan Huberdeau’s cost per point share is approximately 10 times Ekholm’s.

Buffalo Sabres’ Mattias Samuelsson is next on the list with a score of 16/100. Scoring 41 points over 78 games and an average ice time of just under 23 minutes, Samuelsson’s cost per PS is also $0.5 million, based on a cap hit of $4.3 million and a PS of 9.2.

Josh Manson, defenseman for the Colorado Avalanche, sits in third with a score of 18/100. Achieving the 5th highest plus/minus in the entire league at +42, Manson earns a PS of 7.2, resulting in a cost per PS of $0.5 million based on his $4 million cap hit.

Multiple players share the fourth spot with scores of 19/100: Edmonton Oilers’ Ryan Shea (cap hit of $4 million and a 7.3 PS), Utah Mammoth’s Nate Schmidt (cap hit of $3.5 million and a PS of 6.1), Washington Capitals’ Aliaksei Protas (cap hit of $3.4 million and a PS of 6), and Columbus Blue Jackets’ Jet Greaves (cap hit of $5 million and a PS of 11.7).

The most overpaid teams

The study also crunched the numbers to determine which teams overall are the most overpaid – the Vancouver Canucks are in first place with an average score of 58/100, where the average PS is a low 4.1 while the team’s cap hit averages $6.6 million. The St. Louis Blues and New York Rangers tie for second place, scoring 57/100, with Pavel Buchnevich ranking as the Blues’ most overpaid player (cap hit of $8 million and PS of 4.1) and J.T. Miller taking the top spot for the Rangers (cap hit of $8 million and PS of 3.8).

On the flip side, the Carolina Hurricanes are the most valuable team with the lowest score of 41/100, where defenseman Sean Walker offers the best value, posting a PS of 5.8 and a cap hit of $3.6 million. Following behind in joint second are the Buffalo Sabres (average cap hit of $6.2 million and PS of 6.4) and Pittsburgh Penguins (average cap hit of $4.7 million and PS of 4.3), each with scores of 43/100.

Conclusion

Using statistics is crucial to truly determine whether a player’s performance is matching their salary – and from these findings, it’s clear that several players are in fact overpaid, from Jonathan Huberdeau who earns significantly more than his teammates with a low PS of 2 to Sergei Bobrovsky who has a low rank of #61 for his GAA last season.

Methodology

In August 2026, Casino Guru USA gathered the following metrics on every NHL player:

• 2026/27 cap totals, sourced from Spotrac - players with a cap hit of less than $3 million were excluded
• 2025/26 Point Shares (PS) sourced from Hockey Reference - PS is the one metric that spans every position, ensuring a fair cross-position comparison
• Cost per PS - cap hit divided by PS, to demonstrate a simple cross-position check on what each point cost

Players who appeared in fewer than 49 games of the 2025/26 season, or a goaltender who appeared in fewer than 33 games, were not included in the final rankings, as well as players with no 2025/26 PS. Additional statistics on performance were sourced from Hockey Alchemy, ESPN, and StatMuse.

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