3. Ville Leino, six years, $27 million: The season before he signed his monster deal with the Sabres, Leino scored 19 goals and made $825,000. A season later, he scored eight goals and made $6 million. Sure, he had promise, which was shown in a record 2010 playoffs with the Flyers, but there was little else in Leino’s past performances to indicate he was worth that kind of money and term.
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9. Tyler Myers, seven years, $38.5 million: The annual cap hit of Myers’ contract isn’t so bad -- $5.5 million -- but why did the Sabres give him a $10 million signing bonus for the first year? Was it really that hard for him to sign the contract? It makes the first season of his deal -- which is, symbolically, the locked-out 2012-13 season -- worth $12 million, third-highest salary in the league. And we’re pretty sure that unless you live in Cheektowaga, you’ve never heard of Tyler Myers.