Just how important is goaltending?
That has been a big question around the NHL over the last couple of seasons — especially after Colorado and Vegas won the Stanley Cup.
Teams around the league take notes from the reigning champ to try and replicate their success. One lesson from those two Cup runs was that a team could get by with average goaltending. The Avalanche did when Darcy Kuemper’s game wilted in the playoffs in 2022. Then a year later, the Golden Knights won without a true number one.
Questions started to swirl about whether the age of bona fide number-one goaltenders was ending. The days of having a goalie play 70-plus starts have already passed, but did Vegas and Colorado take things a step further?
Teams built like the Avalanche and Golden Knights show it’s possible to thrive without a true number one. But that lesson doesn’t apply to everyone. As high-powered as the Devils can be in front of the blue paint, issues in net were unquestionably back-breaking last season. It was a strong reminder of the impact of reliable goaltending. And the Devils aren’t the only team to recognize that.
After a flurry of goalie movement this summer to solidify creases around the league, a handful of teams have found their number ones. So now the focus has shifted to how much those goaltenders are worth in today’s game.
That conversation was brought right to the forefront with the Jeremy Swayman contract.
It seems that the Bruins had $66 million reasons to lock up Swayman as their number one in a deal that goes against the grain of the goalie market.
Swayman’s officially paid like a top-five goalie in this league, but he doesn’t have the same track record as some of the players around him. Connor Hellebuyck and Andrei Vasilevskiy have proven they’re two of the best goalies in the world. Swayman doesn’t even have one full season as a true starting goalie. The Bruins didn’t even trust him to play consecutive starts last regular season, which led to some postseason questions about goalie deployment.
But one of the big differences with the Swayman contract is the age range; it covers ages 25 to 33 instead of starting in his early 30s. Most long-term goalie contracts start later and span through years of expected decline. There isn’t a ton of recent work in the public sphere on how goalies age, but similar to skaters, the general gist is that the drop-off can be steep and dramatic once a player hits their mid-30s. Goaltending is a volatile position on a good day, so betting on those later years can be even dicier.
For Boston, the risk is that even with this more favorable age range, Swayman crumbles in a true starting capacity, leaving the Bruins with a weight on the books. But what he has done in a shared role was worth betting on. He was a top-10 goalie in goals saved above expected as a 1B in 2022-23 and moved up to the top five last season — and he carried his form into the playoffs with a more defined number-one role.
This contract set a new bar for starting goaltenders — one Linus Ulmark cashed in on days later in Ottawa. Considering how closely linked Swayman and Ullmark have been over the last few years, it was only fitting they signed contracts with matching AAVs. The difference is the four-year term for Ullmark, which tracks for a contract kicking in at age 32 versus 25. And that will be something to keep in mind with pending RFA Jake Oettinger, who will be 26 when his next contract starts.
Swayman and Ullmark are now being leaned on as number ones, and their contracts reflect that. Joey Daccord, on the other hand, is a part of a shared crease in Seattle. He has even less of a track record than Swayman, with only one year of strong play at the NHL level under his belt so far. With Philipp Grubauer on the books as well, it makes sense Daccord’s next contract comes in a few tiers below Swayman and Ullmark with a $5 million AAV over five years.
If Daccord can earn the 1A role again this year and onward in Seattle, maybe his deal resets the bar for that role. And that should affect the market of 2025 goalies, both with 1As and overall average-caliber starters. Adin Hill, Alexandar Georgiev and Charlie Lindgren will all be UFAs next summer. And that should have a trickle-down effect on 1Bs as well, like Ilya Samsonov, Karel Vejmelka and Logan Thompson.
But the Daccord deal also sparks questions this next year should answer, including what a tandem is worth collectively. Is almost $11 million too steep of a cost for two goalies? That is what the Kraken will be paying between 2025 and 2027 unless management moves on from Grubauer.
It wouldn’t be the most expensive crease in the league. The Panthers have $14.5 million dedicated to Sergei Bobrovsky and Spencer Knight. And the Rangers are looking at spending more than $11 million on one goaltender at this rate.
Only two goaltenders are on the books for eight digits: Sergei Bobrovsky in Florida at $10 million and Carey Price for another two years in Montreal at $10.5 million. A new deal for Igor Shesterkin is almost certainly going to come out ahead and be the richest goalie contract signed.
The redefined goalie market only adds more oomph to Shesterkin’s case. Swayman, a goalie with less of a track record, is worth $66 million or 9.4 percent of the cap in Year 1. If that just became the bar for someone with a strong number-one starting capacity but some question marks, what does it mean for someone who has already proven they are one of the best goaltenders in the world?
Shesterkin has regular-season consistency behind him and has proven to be a game-breaker in the postseason. He is more than just a franchise player to the Rangers; all of their hopes are built around him. And that could be worth $12 million in today’s goalie market — even though he will be 29 when his next deal starts.
A $12 million AAV would be 13 percent of a projected $92 million ceiling in 2025-26, which would come in a shade below Price’s 13.2 percent hit in 2018-19. It would just eclipse Henrik Lundqvist, who was worth 12.3 percent of the cap in Year 1 of his contract back in 2014-15. And it would jump ahead of Bobrovsky, a reigning champ who made the case that a team can win with a $10 million goalie.
With Shesterkin, the question isn’t only whether a team can build around a $12 million goalie. It will also challenge if they can be a team’s highest-paid player.
Auston Matthews, the Maple Leafs’ MVP, leads the league with a $13.3 million cap hit. Leon Draisaitl will jump ahead next year with a $14 million AAV, and he isn’t even the Oilers’ most valuable player. Connor McDavid is only going to push the boundaries even further the following year.
While Shesterkin won’t push into the same salary stratosphere as McDavid salary-wise, there is something that separates a team’s willingness to invest this heavily in a goalie versus a skater: the volatility of position. As easy as it is to point to Bobrovsky’s Stanley Cup ring, it doesn’t overshadow the hot-and-cold regular seasons and playoff performances over the years.
The Swayman contract made a statement in the goalie market. Number one goalies still have a lot of value in today’s game, even if some teams can succeed without a bona fide starter. That signing has already had a ripple effect on subsequent deals. And now it could help Shesterkin push the bounds on any conventions around the value of an elite number one.
Data via CapWages, PuckPedia, and CapFriendly
(Photo of Igor Shesterkin: James Guillory / USA Today)
