Player Study: Andrei Kostitsyn (Happy Andrei Kostitsyn Sucks Day)

Continuing from Tuesday, When we took a look at our #1 injury prone D-man, Andrei Markov, the “Player Studies” series now moves on to a different Andrei with a whole different set of issues. The second installment of “Player Studies” focuses on the under-achieving forward with the uncertain future, Andrei Kostitsyn.

On June 9th, the Montréal Canadiens signed Kostitsyn to a 1 year deal worth $3.25M. It would be fair to say the critics this Belarusian forward has amassed exceeds that of almost any other player on the Canadiens; and these critics were certain that the Habs had overpaid for this streaky sniper. I recently stumbled upon an article at Allhabs.net by Rick Stephens that shows quite the opposite.

It shows that $3.25M is a rather fair salary for a player of Kostitsyn’s stats and abilities. Stephens proves this by comparing Kostitsyn’s salary and stats to those of other players with similar salaries around the league. If you look at the stats, you’ll see Kostitsyn’s salary is right where it ought to be.

“Goal production by forwards with similar salaries (2010-11)

Justin Williams 22G $3.65M
Alexander Steen 20G $3.567M
Valtteri Filppula 16G $3.5M
Dainius Zubrus 13G $3.40M
Dave Bolland 15G $3.375M

It seems that Kostitsyn compares very favorably. Once you factor in that the other players all play in more offense-minded systems, his value is enhanced.”
(see here for full article)

With the salary issue out of the way, we can conclude that his salary matches his production. Now we can address the claims that he just doesn’t care. This was also covered in Rick Stephens.

“he wasn’t all that enthralled with the contrived post-game dance practised in North-American sports venues: media asks a question they think is clever; athlete pretends to look interested and spouts off a canned meaningless answer.

Instead Kostitsyn prefers to be on the ice playing the game he loves and performing the job he is being paid to do: score goals.”

I %100 agree with Kostitsyn’s take on talking to the media. The same questions with the same answers are regurgitated night in and out. I mean, How many times have you heard this exchange?

Reporter: Your team has dropped five strait games, what does your team have to do to break out of this slump?

Athlete: Yeah, you know, we haven’t been working well as a team lately, now we just gotta go to practice with open minds, work harder and play better as a team, we just gotta take it one game at a time.

It’s almost gotten to the point where you can hear the question, mute the T.V. and recite what the athlete will say.

When a athlete goes against the grain and says something unusual, they end up stuck in the highlight reels forever and run the risk of getting a reputation of bringing unwanted publicity to their team (e.g. Sean Avery) So I can understand why Kostitsyn doesn’t like talking to the media.

If you’ll excuse my tangent, we can now return to the Player Study.

Recently, there were rumours about a Nashville/Montréal trade that would see both Gomez and Kostitsyn in return for star prospect Ryan Ellis along with a fourth line grinder (Why would Nashville ever agree to that? See here)

Kostitsyn has said himself that he wants out of Montréal, and if Nashville is willing to take Kostitsyn AND Gomez,the two most under fire players on the Canadiens, AND we get Ellis, that’d be almost like a dream. To make this possible deal even more convincing, Kostitsyn’s contract was only a one year deal and the Habs signed a very similar player in Erik Cole during the off season. Smells like the early workings of a trade to me.

Quite frankly, if and when that day comes I believe he’ll be hardly missed by the Montreal Canadiens. But that’s just my opinion.

What do you think of Andrei Kostitsyn?

If you want to let me know what you think you can leave a comment or tweet me @JScaresHabs.

P.S. If you haven’t already read Steven Ellis’ “7 ideas to make the NHL better” Please do read it, it’s a great article.