It’s fascinating that the two biggest debates over free-agent contracts in the NHL this fall have been focused on goalies.
First, we had Jeremy Swayman and the Boston Bruins. The negotiation went public and got a bit nasty before finally resolving where it should have.
Now we’re onto another marquee talent and franchise, with Igor Shesterkin reportedly turning down a massive $88 million offer from the New York Rangers this week.
The narrative in goalie circles right now is that some of these star netminders want to change the paradigm regarding goalie salaries. For years, they’d argue, the top goalies have been underpaid while the offensive stars continue to push the envelope, with Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Auston Matthews and Leon Draisaitl setting AAV records year after year.
They’re not wrong that goalies haven’t been getting paid. When Swayman signed his new eight-year, $8.25 million-a-season deal, he became only the fifth active goalie with an AAV of more than $6.4 million, joining Sergei Bobrovsky, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Connor Hellebuyck and Ilya Sorokin. That’s it.
Contrast the five goalies at that number with the 81 forwards and 42 defensemen making more than $6.4 million, and it’s a pretty large divide. Those figures equate to under 8 percent of the regular goaltenders in the game making more than 7.27 percent of the cap, compared to 21 percent of forwards and 22 percent of defensemen hitting that mark.
The biggest reason for the trend?
Well, quite simply, general managers don’t want to pay them. Even as some of the top names in the goalie guild are making noise about wanting a bigger piece of the pie, behind the scenes, executives will tell you they can’t afford to bet on them the way they will a top goal scorer or No. 1 defenseman.
Here’s why.
1. You rarely know what you’re going to get
The toughest thing by far with goalies in the NHL right now is projecting future performance.
In fact, a typical NHL goaltender’s performance can vary on average by more than 14 goals against every 40 games, which can mean the difference between a star goalie and an average one, or an average one and a poor one. (That’s roughly the difference between having a .915 save percentage and a .904, depending on shot volume faced.)
This level of volatility tends to apply to the top netminders, too. Those excelling in the crease change every few years, with only a few repeat Vezina winners in the 20 years of the cap era.
That means assuming your star goalie will be able to earn an elite salary for more than a short window doesn’t always pay off.
Take the past 12 years, going back to the last lockout in 2012. If we separate the top 10 goalies into three-year spans (using goals saved above expected and a minimum of 90 games played) in that period, we get a list that looks like so, in order of performance:
2013-15: Henrik Lundqvist, Carey Price, Cory Schneider, Semyon Varlamov, Kari Lehtonen, Jaroslav Halak, Tuukka Rask, Jonathan Bernier, Corey Crawford, Ben Bishop
2016-18: John Gibson, Jonathan Quick, Sergei Bobrovsky, Corey Crawford, Braden Holtby, Antti Raanta, Cam Talbot, Frederik Andersen, Henrik Lundqvist, Mike Smith
2019-21: Robin Lehner, Connor Hellebuyck, Ben Bishop, Petr Mrázek, Jordan Binnington, Darcy Kuemper, Juuse Saros, John Gibson, Marc-André Fleury, Andrei Vasilevskiy
2022-24: Connor Hellebuyck, Igor Shesterkin, Ilya Sorokin, Juuse Saros, Linus Ullmark, Frederik Andersen, Jacob Markström, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Jeremy Swayman, Stuart Skinner
There simply aren’t a lot of repeat names there, outside of the very elite like Lundqvist and Hellebuyck, who show up twice. What you do get is a ton of one-and-done types, who perform for two or three seasons and then sink back to mediocrity.
And that appears to hold true no matter how you slice up the data.
All that said, giving a goalie a higher cap hit for elite performance wouldn’t be an issue if they were asking for shorter-term contracts than skaters. But when the norm is a massive seven- or eight-year deal, and only a few goalies can maintain a high level of play for more than a two- or three-year stretch, it puts GMs in a difficult position.
And that serves to bring down the AAV, as the level of certainty that you’ll get value out of netminders isn’t always there the way it is with position players.
2. Age comes for goalies in a big way
We know from years of research that NHL players can get “old” fast.
Scoring tends to peak between the ages of 23 and 27. So, too, do other aspects of offensive play.
Goaltenders aren’t dramatically different, except any negative impact they make obviously can impact a team far more directly given they’re in the crease for the entire game and every goal against can be a backbreaker.
The above chart comes from Cam Lawrence, a statistical analyst who used to write publicly at “Canucks Army” and now works for the Columbus Blue Jackets. He concluded a goalie’s peak can extend a bit later than a skater’s, typically into their late 20s, but the falloff is dramatic by around 34, even for top goalies.
This is particularly relevant regarding Shesterkin, whose next contract won’t kick in until he is almost 30 years old. A $12 million deal over eight years could age poorly by about its midway point, based on historical norms for similar players.
And that might be a best-case scenario. The modern style of goaltending is very hard on players’ bodies, and by the time they reach their late 20s, they’ve often been playing high-level goal for close to 15 years. Some starters have had to battle through multiple hip surgeries and other lower-body injuries, playing at diminished capacity for years. Some surgeons now seem to make their living putting goalies back together again.
Other goalies who have signed big contracts like Price and Bishop suffered career-ending injuries in their early 30s and retired with multiple expensive years left on their deals.
Consider there are only 13 goalies who are 33 or older under contract this season in the NHL. Two of them have retired due to injury (Price and Lehner), and one is a third-stringer (James Reimer). Only three were No. 1s last season (Markström, Talbot and Bobrovsky).
That’s one key reason why the Swayman contract could be a bigger win than most bloated goalie deals: He’s far younger than most goaltenders established enough to command an eight-year deal.
Swayman, 25, will turn 33 only during the final year of his contract, meaning he can transition into a tandem or backup role and sign another contract after this one, health permitting.
3. You can’t hide a big goalie salary
This is partially an extension of No. 2, but it’s important enough that it deserves its own category.
With skaters, you can sign them to big, bloated contracts as free agents and ride out the later years by playing them down the lineup. Typically, skaters maintain their defensive ability later in their careers too, adding an extra benefit to their play that extends their utility.
Players like Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin come to mind. They’re making too much for what they bring to the Dallas Stars’ second and third lines, at more than $9 million a season each, but they’re still effective enough in more limited roles that their team can contend for a championship even while spending nearly a quarter of its cap space on their salaries.
That’s typically not going to be the case for an $11 million goalie in their mid-30s, as that high of a salary will limit how much you can pay a backup and force you to rely on the aging No. 1 for 50-plus games and then the postseason.
The other thing is that, unlike goaltenders, there are a remarkable number of skaters over the age of 33 playing at a high level. Brent Burns, Anze Kopitar, Kris Letang, Sidney Crosby, Mats Zuccarello, Brad Marchand, Claude Giroux, Patrick Kane, Alex Ovechkin, Ryan McDonagh, Chris Tanev, Erik Karlsson, John Carlson, Drew Doughty, Nazem Kadri, Alex Pietrangelo, John Tavares, Steven Stamkos and Roman Josi are basically all more effective everyday players than almost any goaltender in the same age bracket.
Paying skaters more for longer simply makes sense given the risks and rewards involved. And while it’s hard for the goalie union to see teammates at the top of their games get rewarded more than they are as the salary cap has risen, that’s probably going to be the reality for all but the select few.
Shesterkin has proven such an elite talent in his first four years in the NHL that it’s understandable the Rangers want to bet on him and hope he proves these trends wrong. But even with his track record (which is only 213 regular-season games), an eight-year deal for more than $90 million will be a considerable gamble.
What Bobrovsky has done is a strong outlier performance, not the norm, and his deal shouldn’t be the model for goalie contracts to come.
Swayman’s deal, on the other hand, may well prove a better new template, given his age and the lower AAV involved.
(Top photo: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
