How much would you like to have your team spending on a starting goaltender?

[5minutemajor]

The market has really come down. Vibes of a RB economy in the NFL.

Click to read more...

 

[AvroArrow]

3M on prime Hasek


Everyone wants the best goalie on the best possible contract, realistically you want to spend as little as possible

 

[5minutemajor]

3M on prime Hasek


Everyone wants the best goalie on the best possible contract, realistically you want to spend as little as possible

Is that really so? If Prime Hasek gets 3M, you know that he is not happy. That would likely backfire.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

Going forward 8M max on your two goalies makes sense to me. Ideally you get that down to 6M and only go above 8M if you lucked into a real game breaker like Sorokin.

 

[JaegerDice]

6 million if you can count on him for roughly .915-920 over at least 50 RS games and a playoff run.

The market has really come down. Vibes of a RB economy in the NFL.

Goalies are basically the equivalent of field-goal kickers in the NFL.

 

[Bounces R Way]

6M is about right for a consistent top20 starter I think. Would go as high as 8 for the top 6-7 if they have the body of work to back it up.

 

[dirtydanglez]

depends on the goalie.

elite - $8m ish
good quality starter $5-6m

 

[tucker3434]

It depends. If I had Shesterkin who I was confident would be elite a while, I’d spend some money. But it’s generally pretty dumb to grab a UFA who’s been about .920 once for $6-7m. Take a $3-4m guy and you’ll likely get the same results.

 

[Coffees]

6 million if you can count on him for roughly .915-920 over at least 50 RS games and a playoff run.



Goalies are basically the equivalent of field-goal kickers in the NFL.

Wrong. Goalies are equivalent of quarterbacks.

Try playing without one. Goalies are the backbone of this sport

 

[JaegerDice]

Wrong. Goalies are equivalent of quarterbacks.

Try playing without one. Goalies are the backbone of this sport

Let me describe a position to you.

There is one per team. This position factors into most of the points a team scores every game.

The natural assumption would be ‘wow, that must be a very valuable position, they must be very well paid’.

Nope. Its the NFL kicker.

And they arent paid very well because the gap between the very best on the market and the baseline competence a team needs to succeed is very small.

This is the same for goalies. Only a moronic front office would pay through the nose for a .930+ goalie when they could better leverage that money towards other positions and pay much less for a .915 goalie that is good enough to win.

The gap between elite goalies and ‘good enough’ goalies is smaller than any other position in hockey.

 

[Coffees]

Let me describe a position to you.

There is one per team. This position factors into most of the points a team scores every game.

The natural assumption would be ‘wow, that must be a very valuable position, they must be very well paid’.

Nope. Its the NFL kicker.

And they arent paid very well because the gap between the very best on the market and the baseline competence a team needs to succeed is very small.

This is the same for goalies. Only a moronic front office would pay through the nose for a .930+ goalie when they could better leverage that money towards other positions and pay much less for a .915 goalie that is good enough.

Wrong. Congrats on being the mayor of Wrongville.

When a player takes a penalty, he sits out and the other teams plays with a powerplay.

Try taking the goalie out for two minutes, I don’t even need to further explain.

Goalies run the hockey world first and foremost, players come second.

 

[JaegerDice]

Wrong. Congrats on being the mayor of Wrongville.

When a player takes a penalty, he sits out and the other teams plays with a powerplay.

Try taking the goalie out for two minutes, I don’t even need to further explain.

Goalies run the hockey world first and foremost, players come second.

So, your argument for the monetary value of goalies within a sport is a scenario that literally never happens in said sport.

 

[Coffees]

So, your argument for the monetary value of goalies within a sport is a scenario that literally never happens in said sport.

 

[JaegerDice]

I’m well aware that goalies are overvalued within the NHL and hockey culture, Im not sure I needed a video to prove it.

You havent actually presented any arguments to counter my position that the gap between elite and good enough goaltending is insufficient to warrant spending large sums on goaltenders.

There’s a reason few goaltenders are paid over 8mil for more than 5 years and damn near every team that goes beyond those bounds regrets it.

 

[Kiorei]

4 million because that's what Oettinger makes.

 

[JaegerDice]

Interestingly, only 2 cup winners in the cap era have paid more than 6 million for their cup-winning goalie.

Washington (2018) and Tampa Bay (2021).

Only two have ever spend over 10% of the cap on their cup-winning goalie. Anaheim (2007) and Tampa Bay (2021).

NINE cup winners spent under 5% of the cap on their cup winning goalie. Carolina (2006), Detroit (2008), Chicago (2010), Los Angeles (2012), Chicago (2013), Pittsburgh (2017), Pittsburgh (2016), St. Louis (2019), Tampa Bay (2020), and Vegas (2023).

Go cheap on goalies. Low AAV, low term. It's simply the smart thing to do.

They are the kickers of the NHL.

 

[holy]

They can pay me league minimum to do it. I have hoop dreams.

 

[Voight]

Interestingly, only 2 cup winners in the cap era have paid more than 6 million for their cup-winning goalie.

Washington (2018) and Tampa Bay (2021).

Only two have ever spend over 10% of the cap on their cup-winning goalie. Anaheim (2007) and Tampa Bay (2021).

NINE cup winners spent under 5% of the cap on their cup winning goalie. Carolina (2006), Detroit (2008), Chicago (2010), Los Angeles (2012), Chicago (2013), Pittsburgh (2017), Pittsburgh (2016), St. Louis (2019), Tampa Bay (2020), and Vegas (2023).

Go cheap on goalies. Low AAV, low term. It's simply the smart thing to do.

They are the kickers of the NHL.

Context helps tho - Cam Ward & Matt Murray were all their ELCs. Binnignton was on a. two-way deal.

 

[JaegerDice]

Context helps tho - Cam Ward & Matt Murray were all their ELCs. Binnignton was on a. two-way deal.

I'm not sure how this context counters the general idea that you don't need to spend a lot for good goaltending. If you can get it off an ELC or a two-way, why pay over 6 million to a UFA or pending UFA?

In any case, I love seeing teams sign goalies to high AAVs and long term contracts. It basically disqualifies them as a legitimate, sustained contender. Sure, they might go on a cinderella run here or there, but they'll never win or come close again.

It does seem like GMs are learning though. In the past, if a 30-year old goalie like Hellebuyck was on the market, teams would be lining up to light assets and cap space on fire to get him. Right now, seems like everybody is like 'eeeeeeh, no thanks, not loving that'.

They're starting to learn, you never overpay for the kicker.

 

[MikeyMike01]

6 million if you can count on him for roughly .915-920 over at least 50 RS games and a playoff run.



Goalies are basically the equivalent of field-goal kickers in the NFL.

RBs are the best comparison

There’s about 5 really good ones, and everyone else makes due with platoons

 

[JaegerDice]

RBs are the best comparison

There’s about 5 really good ones, and everyone else makes due with platoons

Ok, but how often do the teams paying market value for the 5 really good ones win?

Nobody is arguing that you should kick a guy making less than 5 mil and putting up a 920+ out the door.

The argument is whether the guy putting up a 930 is worth double the guy putting up a 920, or if the guy that gave you 920 at under 5 is suddenly worthy 8.

 

[Breakers]

They just talked about this on TSN radio and were saying what is you're ideal breakdown

Jamie Mclenan former NHL goalie said
$7.2 million Starter
$2.1 Million backup

so roughly about 11-12% of cap

I thought that seemed logical if you are planning on doing a long playoff run
play the starter less in regular season
which means having quality backup

I'd probably go try to get it right around 9% for the total of the tandem

 

[LightningStorm]

Interestingly, only 2 cup winners in the cap era have paid more than 6 million for their cup-winning goalie.

Washington (2018) and Tampa Bay (2021).

Only two have ever spend over 10% of the cap on their cup-winning goalie. Anaheim (2007) and Tampa Bay (2021).

NINE cup winners spent under 5% of the cap on their cup winning goalie. Carolina (2006), Detroit (2008), Chicago (2010), Los Angeles (2012), Chicago (2013), Pittsburgh (2017), Pittsburgh (2016), St. Louis (2019), Tampa Bay (2020), and Vegas (2023).

Go cheap on goalies. Low AAV, low term. It's simply the smart thing to do.

They are the kickers of the NHL.

I've always been of the belief that a goalie who won't lose you the game is the requirement for a cup winner, with a goalie who can win you the game/steal games being a nice added bonus. Your Blackhawks were an example of the former. $6M is the highest I'd go for most of the best goalies, with $8M being reserved for the very top tier such as Vasilevskiy as well as the new deal Sorokin signed.

As others have pointed out, I too agree that the NFL position akin to goalies is RB more than kicker.

 

[Peat]

I would be okay with my team paying 9 to 10m for Vasilevskiy, Sorokin, Shesterkin, or Saros, if my team had already seen them excel in their system. Elite goaltending on a team that doesn't throw them to the wolves can hugely boost a team's chances of winning a cup. Is that how much I think they should be paid? Probably not, but if you're going to overpay, overpay there.

If I don't have one of those guys, I want to do it as cheap as possible while still getting one of the 15-25 guys where I'm fairly confident they're not going to poop themselves unexpectedly either through nerves or fitness.

And if I can't get one of those, which isn't uncommon if you didn't develop the guy as teams rarely let go of safe goaltenders, just go real damn cheap and pray. There's few things more depressing than seeing your team treat one of the unreliable goalies like one of the reliable ones.

I also think that in an ideal world, I'd like my team to draft a goalie every other year at minimum, and preferably more. I think some of the talk about the position being devalued is a bit nuts. There aren't enough good NHL goalies to go around, team control makes them hard to get, and a bad one sinks you. Good on Vegas for hitting a lucky one but that's rare. The big problem is year to year eliteness is very rare and it's therefore accordingly rare to find one worth paying all the money to.

 

[Three On Zero]

5-6 on starter, 1-2 on backup