Benoit Pouliot, Left Wing
Benoit Pouliot earned his current contract ($4 million per season through 2018/19) after a decent year and an excellent playoff run with the New York Rangers. He’s since managed to have a career year for the Oilers, scoring at a rate that would put him just behind Duchene on the Colorado Avalanche.
However, he did this while playing most of the time with Connor McDavid and getting sheltered zone starts. He also historically has never put up numbers like this. I seriously doubt he’d be able to keep up this level of production on a new team.
There’s also the suspicious fact that he’d played for 5 different teams over 5 seasons (MIN, MTL, BOS, TB, & NYR) before arriving in Edmonton, and the Oilers already tried to trade him at the deadline. I suspect that Mr. Pouliot might not be a great guy to have in the dressing room.
Next: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins