Today's winners in Stats & Analytics:

Today's losers:

When I started this blog six months ago, if you had asked me which of my posts would cause the most controversy, believe me, never in a million years would I have replied, "The one on Mikko Koivu!" But a relatively mild piece I wrote in July, calling the 27-year-old Finnish center a good player but not worth the dollars Minnesota spent to extend his contract, set off a genuine flame war at Hockey Wilderness, an excellent Wild fan site.

"If this piece of work from Keating is representative of what he usually does, then he should be fired," one commenter wrote.

"Keating, you just embarrassed yourself to one of the largest hockey markets in the U.S.," another said. "Any of us could do better than this clown."

Then there was the guy who posted, "Let's go Wild fans! Prepare for hell Keating!"

But this was my favorite: "Let me work on preparing a statistical analysis of how soliciting prostitutes would be a better use of your dollars than subscribing to ESPN to get Insider access to read this article."

So it's finally time to take a closer look at how to evaluate NHL contracts -- and explain why I was right about Koivu.