Here is a summary from an article by Marc-Antoine Godin from La Presse.
The story of the article start as Tom Kostopoulos joined his teammates on the press gallery after his expulsion from Saturday’s game. Begin and Dandenault were looking at their team getting mauled by the Leafs.
Dandenault played only 8 games this season while Begin a disappointing 5 games. And since Carbonneau already mentioned he want to use Laraque more (and Lapierre is doing a good job) some of those players will see a lot of games from the rafters. Considering the 5 players have a combined salary of 5 869 500$ and only three roster spots, there is good money sitting every game.
Later in the article we have some interesting numbers compiled by La Presse.
Costly 4th line
Looking at lineups as of yesterday, here are the five teams who spend the most, on average, on fourth line or sitting players.
1 Tampa Bay (5) 1 181 500$
2 Montréal (5) 1 173 900$
3 Minnesota (5) 943 000$
4 Rangers de NY (5) 925 500$
5 Floride (4) 887 000$
And the five team pending the least.
1 Caroline (4) 480 000$
2 New Jersey (3) 598 000$
3 Nashville (5) 598 000$
4 Chicago (4) 603 000$
5 Dallas (5) 624 000$
( ) = amount of players taken into account
Paid to sit
Here is the list of highest paid fourth liners in the NHL
1 Gary Roberts (TB) 2 420 000$
2 Mathieu Dandenault (Mtl) 1 725 000$
3 Benoît Pouliot (Min) 1 700 000$
4 Tyler Arnason (Col) 1 675 000$
5 Petr Prucha (NYR) 1 600 000$
6 Georges Laraque (Mtl) 1 500 000$
6 Derek Armstrong (LA) 1 500 000$
8 Wayne Primeau (Cal) 1 400 000$
9 Jamal Mayers (Tor) 1 330 000$
10 Chris Gratton (TB) 1 250 000$
Michel Ouellet (Van) 1 250 000$
Donald Brashear (Was) 1 250 000$
17 Steve Bégin (Mtl) 1 057 000$