The NHL has a lot of bad contracts. Every year, especially on July 1, general managers go wild for big depth defensemen and checking centers, pushing the AAV too high on contracts they’ll soon regret.
Nowhere is that regret more evident than among goalies.
By my count, there are as many as 14 objectively “bad” goalie contracts in the NHL right now — which is a remarkable number given there are only 64 full-time jobs in the league each season. That’s a rate of badness of over 20 percent, and I’m not even including the unlucky netminders who have had their careers shortened due to injury, like Carey Price and Robin Lehner.
Since the start of last season, four goaltenders making at least $3.5 million have been placed on waivers: Cal Petersen, Jack Campbell, Ilya Samsonov and, most recently, Ville Husso.
Campbell’s contract was bought out in the offseason, leaving the contending Oilers with a $10.5 million cap hit spread over the next six years. Petersen and Husso, meanwhile, are in the minors, battling for playing time while making more than $4.7 million each.
Samsonov at least is off to a good start in Vegas after taking a 50 percent haircut on his AAV to back up Adin Hill.
But these four cautionary tales are far from the only goalie whiffs around the league, and some come with even more difficult circumstances given how their contracts are structured. With an eye on how things are playing out in Pittsburgh right now, where their No. 1 making big money was a healthy scratch on Sunday night, I wanted to pull together a power(less) rankings of the crease early on this season.
Let’s dive in…
12. Vítek Vaněček, San Jose Sharks
Remaining contract: Final year, $3.4 million
Recent performance: All over the place. Two years ago, he was very solid for the Devils in posting a 33-11-4 record and .911 save percentage in 52 games played. Then the wheels fell off last season and he was given away at the deadline to the Sharks.
Extenuating circumstances: The Sharks aren’t exactly hunting for wins right now.
Verdict: Maybe he just had one bad year last season?
11. Ivan Fedotov, Philadelphia Flyers
Remaining contract: This season and next, $3.275 million
Recent performance: Let’s just say Flyers fans are a wee bit nervous about the big Russian given his .815 save percentage in the NHL so far.
Extenuating circumstances: It’s been five games.
Verdict: It feels too early to have him here. I almost left him out. But the numbers are very bad — his goals saved above expected per 60 is the lowest of anyone on this list by a considerable amount — and the contract has term and a fairly high AAV. He could climb this list. Or work his way off of it, as he acclimatizes to playing in North America.
10. Alexandar Georgiev, Colorado Avalanche
Remaining contract: Final year, $3.4 million
Recent performance: Georgiev has been absolutely shelled early this season, allowing five goals per 60 minutes with an awful .811 save percentage. Last season was a tough one, too, so things aren’t great, but he did post a very impressive 62-game campaign as recently as 2022-23.
Extenuating circumstances: The Avalanche are decimated by injuries right now, with a huge percentage of their cap space on LTIR. Georgiev hasn’t been good, and he’s about to lose more starts to Justus Annunen, but Colorado’s in a tough spot.
Verdict: There’s no term left on this deal, and the AAV isn’t unreasonable given he won 40 games two years ago and 38 last season. Georgiev’s analytical numbers, such as goals saved above expected, are trending the wrong way, but he has a track record of being a better goalie than this and he could turn things around. Maybe.
9. Anton Forsberg, Ottawa Senators
Remaining contract: Final year, $2.75 million
Recent performance: Forsberg’s breakout season in 2021-22 feels a long ways away. Since then, he’s averaged an .895 save percentage and has some ugly analytical numbers, including early this season, when they’ve needed him to be better.
Extenuating circumstances: He doesn’t make a ton, and the deal is expiring at the end of the year. If he continues to struggle, this likely isn’t a contract that’s hard to move.
Verdict: It’s too much for what he is, and the Senators need more saves from their backup, but there’s worse to come on this list.
8. John Gibson, Anaheim Ducks
Remaining contract: Three years left, $6.4 million
Recent performance: Gibson’s save percentages have been hovering around .900 for a while now, but he’s a case of playing on a rebuilding team impacting those results. His goals saved above expected numbers are closer to league average, making him one of the more effective goalies on this list.
Extenuating circumstances: Gibson was a top-10 — and maybe even a top-five — goalie for the first five years of his career. He received Vezina votes as recently as 2019, and he hasn’t had a lot of help recently. He’s also surprisingly young (31) given how long he’s been in the league (nearly 500 games played).
Verdict: The AAV is sky-high given what he did earlier in his career, and that’s why he ends up this high on the list. But it would be interesting to see if he would rebound in a different environment, as there are still flashes of the goalie he used to be.
7. Darcy Kuemper, Los Angeles Kings
Remaining contract: Three years left, $5.25 million
Recent performance: Well, he did win the Stanley Cup in 2022 with Colorado, which earned him his current payday. If we don’t count that as “recent,” however, he’s been on a fairly steep decline, to the point the Capitals salary-dumped him to L.A. for Pierre-Luc Dubois in June.
Extenuating circumstances: At 34, age appears to be starting to catching up to Kuemper. And without Drew Doughty for a while to start the season, the Kings could leave him relatively exposed.
Verdict: This one could get ugly. You can’t really buy the deal out with the way it’s structured with signing bonuses, so the Kings need him to play his way out of his current funk and get back to the average-ish goalie he was a couple years ago.
6. Philipp Grubauer, Seattle Kraken
Remaining contract: Three years left, $5.9 million
Recent performance: This is Year 4 for him as a Kraken, and the big German has yet to crack a .900 save percentage. And now Joey Daccord is clearly the No. 1.
Extenuating circumstances: Grubauer is one of those goalies who put up years of really solid numbers as a backup in Washington and Colorado, so the hope has to be that maybe there’s some of that in there in a reduced role?
Verdict: Just not a good contract. With Daccord’s big new raise kicking in next season, Grubauer feels like an early buyout candidate unless he has a marked turnaround this season.
5. Tristan Jarry, Pittsburgh Penguins
Remaining contract: Four years left, $5.375 million
Recent performance: There’s some recency bias with this one for sure. Jarry was a healthy scratch on Sunday, passed on the depth chart by little-known rookie Joel Blomqvist, and his future in Pittsburgh feels very precarious a little more than a year after signing his big deal. He’s put up good seasons in the not-so-distant past, but he’s in a funk now.
Extenuating circumstances: It feels unlikely he could be traded right now, and with the way the deal is structured, it doesn’t make sense to be bought out. Alex Nedeljkovic has the net right now after taking over No. 1 duties late last year, but he’s never been established as the guy in the past and Jarry may well get more chances to right himself here.
Verdict: It’s a bit early to call this one unsalvageable, but it could well be headed that way if he doesn’t start playing better. He may be a waivers candidate at some point this season — and I doubt he’d get claimed.
4. Elvis Merzļikins, Columbus Blue Jackets
Remaining contract: Three years left, $5.4 million
Recent performance: It’s been a tough go for the charismatic Latvian. His numbers trended up last season after a disastrous 2022-23, but he still ranks near the bottom of this list of underperformers analytically. He has the worst save percentage of any netminder with a minimum of 50 starts over the past two seasons (.888).
Extenuating circumstances: The Blue Jackets haven’t been very good, and their lineup has been a bit of a revolving door due to the resulting chaos. But Merzļikins’ odd trade request and erratic play certainly haven’t helped.
Verdict: If a trade partner can’t be found, you have to wonder if a buyout is on the table in the offseason.
3. Ville Husso, Detroit Red Wings
Remaining contract: Final year, $4.75 million
Recent performance: Another relatively unheralded young goalie who had one strong season and parlayed that into an ill-advised contract as a free agent. The lesson? Don’t pay a goalie who has played under 80 games big money, no matter what. We’ll call it the Vesa Toskala Rule.
Extenuating circumstances: The Red Wings haven’t exactly been a defensive powerhouse during Husso’s tenure, but Alex Lyon, James Reimer and others have managed to play a whole lot better than Husso.
Verdict: At least this one is buried in the AHL, freeing up a little more than a million in cap space. But this was a costly mistake for Steve Yzerman given how many years Detroit has now spent in the rebuilding wilderness.
2. Cal Petersen, Philadelphia Flyers
Remaining contract: Final year, $5 million
Recent performance: Flyers and goalies, a tale as old as time. This contract was a weird reach when it was signed by the Kings in 2021 and it quickly became one of the worst deals for any player leaguewide. Petersen has played most of the deal in the AHL, making more than 30 times what most of his teammates do.
Extenuating circumstances: The deal is partially buried, and the Flyers knew they were taking it on in order to move a big ticket in Ivan Provorov, who wasn’t working out as a Flyer.
Verdict: The only thing keeping this one from the top of the list is that it’s almost over.
1. Joonas Korpisalo, Boston Bruins
Remaining contract: Four years left, $4 million
Recent performance: This was one of the odder UFA signings in recent memory, as Korpisalo had struggled for years to show any consistency in Columbus before Ottawa gave him a five-year deal at decent starter money.
Extenuating circumstances: The Bruins aren’t paying the full load, as the Senators retained $1 million of this contract for the final four years as part of the Linus Ullmark trade. But $3 million is still a lot to pay a backup who has been below replacement value more often than not throughout his career.
Verdict: Korpisalo has shown flashes of strong play in spot duty earlier in his career (i.e. the 2020 playoffs), so perhaps he’ll settle in behind Boston’s stout team defense and give them a cromulent 25 starts or so the rest of the way. But the early returns are ugly — and he could receive some pressure for playing time from Brandon Bussi in the AHL if he continues to struggle.
Other goalies who could have been mentioned: Dan Vladar (Calgary Flames), Marc-Andre Fleury (Minnesota Wild).
(Top photo of Philipp Grubauer: Chris Jones / Imagn Images)
