Which players got screwed the most by the two lock-outs?

The 2004-2005 lock-out took a year out of the careers of a generation of players. Now, the 2012-13 lock-out is robbing a second group, and it’s doing it to some people for the second time. Some players — Mike Cammalleri, Dustin Brown, come to mind — may even have benefitted from playing an entire season in the AHL during the first lock-out. We can only hope that this will repeat itself this time with players like Andrei Loktionov and Tyler Toffoli.

I started to imagine the archetypal most-screwed-by-both-lock-outs player, and decided it would have to be someone who was just hitting their productive stride when the 2004 lock-out hit, and then, would be due to get one of his big UFA salaries when the 2012 lock-out came around. This player would have been 23-27 in 2004, and 31-34 now. Both in terms of dollars and in productivity, such a player would be losing a lot. More or less 20% of their potential prime years. That was my thought anyway.

So I made a chart.

Players on the chart satisfy the following criteria:

• They scored at least 25 goals in each of 2003-04 and 2011-12, OR
• They scored at least 40 assists in each of 2003-04 and 2011-12.

Interestingly, only two guys — Nash and Kovalchuk — are young enough to fit with my original definition of most-screwed. The rest of the guys are older. Because they are the youngest on the list, you could argue that they are the most screwed of the most-screwed. Super-plus-screwed. Or, you might feel that an older guy — Iginla, Elias — lost a prime season, and now he’s losing one of his most-prized twilight years.

But this is just one spit-balled way of looking at it. Who are your candidates for most-screwed?

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Some posts the robot says are related, but I'll let you be the judge of that:

1. Kings’ cap situation in 2013-14, compliance buy-outs – pt. 3
2. The Alternate Reality No Lock-Out 2012-2013 Season
3. The Cup, Names, Petitions, since the lock-out [CHART FUN]
4. What leverage do the players have?
5. Lock-Out Day 1
6. NHL Lock-Out 2004: relive the magic!
7. One Kings player cracks list of top 20 goal scorers since lock-out

Tags: 2012 NHL Lock-Out, Andrei Loktionov, Dustin Brown, Ilya Kovalchuk, Joe Thornton, Marian Hossa, Rick Nash, Tyler Toffoli

This entry was posted on November 10, 2012 at 9:40 PM and is filed under Good Stuff You Missed the 1st Time. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.