Confirmed Signing with Link: [NYR] G Igor Shesterkin signs extension with the Rangers (8 years, $11.5m AAV)

[LaffyTaffy13]

How many cups did he get you guys? And brodeur outplayed him in the playoffs when he was like 39 so yea…. miss me with that weak ass shit.

Nah marty didnt outplay him, just had a significantly better team in front of him. You should check goals saved above expected those playoffs. Marty was mostly doing cardio those playoffs

Good for him . How many cups did that get him and the Rangers ? Henrique . It’s over.

Devils havent won a cup since Bush’s 1st term and pretend like theyre a winning franchise

 

[Quinning]

As others have said - simply too much for a goaltender.

 

[FiveTacos]

Generational goaltending is almost a curse. The key is to find a guy making $4-7M and let him get hot in the playoffs so you can ice an actual team in front of him

You'd better build one hell of team then, because that's a total dice roll. A lot of pretty good goaltenders only ever have 1 or 2 great runs in their entire postseason careers, and a whole lot of "okay" ones that won't win you anything.

With the way things are going, 4m is going to be good backup money soon.

 

[CupofOil]

Shesterkin is great but no way in hell is he $3m/yr better than Helleybuck who just got paid last year so it's not like it's an entirely different market just 1 year later. Swayman at $8.25m should have been the new benchmark so I'd say that Shesterkin's market should have been 9.5-10m based on that. 11.5 is a different stratosphere, an entirely different stratosphere. This contract is going to reset the goalie market, in a very bad way for teams so I'm sure there's a lot of GMs that aren't too fond of Drury right now.

 

[HFsNumber1Heel]

Shesterkin is great but no way in hell is he $3m/yr better than Helleybuck who just got paid last year so it's not like it's an entirely different market just 1 year later. Swayman at $8.25m should have been the new benchmark so I'd say that Shesterkin's market should have been 9.5-10m based on that. 11.5 is a different stratosphere, an entirely different stratosphere. This contract is going to reset the goalie market, in a very bad way for teams so I'm sure there's a lot of GMs that aren't too fond of Drury right now.

Helleybuck is awesome, however he also got smoked in the playoffs and only really had that one run in 2018.

Was it a lot for Igor? Yes it was. Did the Rangers have other options? Tell me. They have Garand who is a pretty to very good AHL goalie that hasn't played an NHL minute yet. He might be Cam Talbot 2.0, or he might be Jason LaBarberra 2.0. J. Quick is awesome yet he could "get old" any minute.

Rangers have traditionally done well with drafting and developing goalies yet that also comes from quantity. They have Garand/Olas/Boyko in the system now and only Garand looks to have an NHL future.

 

[Leafs87]

Hope he got himself a NMC cause the Rangers are def gunna need to move this before its maturity. Yeesh

 

[HFpapi]

In this day and age, there's probably a 26 year old 2nd string goalie playing in the Czech Extraliga who will win the Vezina in 3 years.

I would never give this much of my cap space to a goalie. As good as Shesterkin is, it can change on a dime.

 

[kp61c]

i like shesterkin, i mean being russian and all that, but that contract is crazy.

 

[Fatass]

In this day and age, there's probably a 26 year old 2nd string goalie playing in the Czech Extraliga who will win the Vezina in 3 years.

I would never give this much of my cap space to a goalie. As good as Shesterkin is, it can change on a dime.

What was the Rangers other option than keeping Shisterkin? Rebuild?

 

[DelZottoHitTheNetJK]

You'd better build one hell of team then, because that's a total dice roll. A lot of pretty good goaltenders only ever have 1 or 2 great runs in their entire postseason careers, and a whole lot of "okay" ones that won't win you anything.

With the way things are going, 4m is going to be good backup money soon.

Look at the list of goaltenders that have won Cups in the last 10 years. You have your studs sure but that mostly works only for no-tax state teams because they can save elsewhere.

Darcy Keumper
Adin Hill
Binnington
Matt Murray

All these guys making a significantly smaller portion of the cap than the contract Shesterkin just signed.

 

[HungryFrank]

in an universe where Swayman gets 8.25, 11.5 for Shesterkin is not that bad.

Both are overpaid

 

[Shane Diesel]

The problem is the defence, not the goaltending.

He's currently 13th in GSAx.

“You can’t win a cup paying a goaltender too much!” - people who don’t realize how much cap Bobrovsky and Vasilevskiy were taking up when they won the Cup.

Nothing like using the exceptions to prove the rule.

 

[HFpapi]

What was the Rangers other option than keeping Shisterkin? Rebuild?

I would've played hardball. What other team in the league do they think is in position to give a goaltender 11.5 a year?

Especially with the Rangers having the leverage of an 8th year. To get an equivalent amount of money over the life-span of the deal, another team would have to give Shesterkin 13 million over 7 years.

Agree to disagree but it seems like cap suicide. I would play hardball and if he calls out NYR bluff then take your chances with someone else.

 

[FiveTacos]

Look at the list of goaltenders that have won Cups in the last 10 years. You have your studs sure but that mostly works only for no-tax state teams because they can save elsewhere.

Darcy Keumper
Adin Hill
Binnington
Matt Murray

All these guys making a significantly smaller portion of the cap than the contract Shesterkin just signed.

That's fine, but every team's situation is different, and there's more than one way to build a Cup winner.

If you're lucky enough to get a great 1-2 punch at C, you'll build differently than a team that perhaps doesn't have great forward talent but maybe two superstar dmen, which might be different than a team with a generational goal scorer, vs. a team with no superstars but a ton of good players, etc.. The Rangers have what might be the best goalie in the league, you don't just walk away from that ... you figure out how best to build around it.

They have some work to do to unload more contracts and then probably reset/retool/whatever, and even then they have to work quick, but that's no different than any other team with either the best C, or the best D, or whoever else that they had to re-sign or let walk. I can't count the number of times I've read on these boards, "you can't pay one forward/dman that much and still build a team around him" ... you'd almost think from reading these boards that if you're lucky enough to have a guy who's elite at his position you should quickly trade him for lesser pieces rather than pay him.

 

[japhi27returns]

Best way to think about this, is if they let him walk, they’d need to replace him. So lets say they replace him with a 6mm tender. What can you get with the saved 5.5mm that makes you a better team then the delta between a 6mm goalie and Igor? 5.5mm is a top 4 D, top 6 winger. And no guarantee your 5mm pickup will be productive - lots of shit 5mm contracts out there.

I know I’d much rather go into the playoffs with Igor, versus say Brock Nelson and Markstrom, Gibson or Grubauer.

 

[Fatass]

I would've played hardball. What other team in the league do they think is in position to give a goaltender 11.5 a year?

Especially with the Rangers having the leverage of an 8th year. To get an equivalent amount of money over the life-span of the deal, another team would have to give Shesterkin 13 million over 7 years.

Agree to disagree but it seems like cap suicide. I would play hardball and if he calls out NYR bluff then take your chances with someone else.

That’s fine to play hardball but when he walks as a UFA what’s the plan after that? It’s exactly like the Rangers have a club that can compete with weak goaltending. I agree it’s too much cap allocated to the goalie. But if they lose Shisterkin they fall into the bottom 10 of the league. Imo.

 

[FiveTacos]

Best way to think about this, is if they let him walk, they’d need to replace him. So lets say they replace him with a 6mm tender. What can you get with the saved 5.5mm that makes you a better team then the delta between a 6mm goalie and Igor? 5.5mm is a top 4 D, top 6 winger. And no guarantee your 5mm pickup will be productive - lots of shit 5mm contracts out there.

What, you don't think Ryan Strome at $5m would tip the scales in a playoff run?

With the cap going up, salaries are gonna get pretty wild. Best to reset expectations for what should cost how much going forward. The difference between even those 8.5m guys and Shesterkin merely buys you an Ilya Lyubushkin last summer, it's only gonna get worse.

 

[flin flon bombers]

Is he that good though, has he ever had to use skinners goal pads for a game?I don't think so,and until he does I will reserve judgment.

 

[Maple Leaf]

Great contract for rival teams

 

[kp61c]

Is he that good though, has he ever had to use skinners goal pads for a game?I don't think so,and until he does I will reserve judgment.

he is good, 8 mil per year good for me, though.

 

[Shane Diesel]

Season - Cup Winning Goaltender - % of Cap

2006 - Ward - 1.17%
2007 - Giguere - 9.07%
2008 - Osgood -1.69%
2009 - Fleury - 8.82%
2010 - Niemi - 3.52%
2011 - Thomas - 8.42%
2012 - Quick - 2.80%
2013 - Crawford - 3.80%
2014 - Quick - 9.02%
2015 - Crawford - 8.40%
2016 - Murray - 1.27%
2017 - Murray - 5.13%
2018 - Holtby - 8.13%
2019 - Binnington - 0.82%
2020 - Vasilevskiy - 11.66%
2021 - Vasilevskiy - 11.66%
2022 - Kuemper - 4.29%
2023 - Hill - 5.94%
2024 - Bobrovsky - 11.98%

Since the implementation of the cap, Vasilevskiy and Bobrovsky are aberrations, not the norm.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Nothing like using the exceptions to prove the rule.

This is such a flawed way of looking at this.

 

[Shane Diesel]

This is such a flawed way of looking at this.

I broke out the numbers for you in post #321. If you have a more insightful model please present it.

 

[Ciao]

Season - Cup Winning Goaltender - % of Cap

2006 - Cam Ward - 1.17%
2007 - Giguere - 9.07%
2008 - Osgood -1.69%
2009 - Fleury - 8.82%
2010 - Niemi - 3.52%
2011 - Thomas - 8.42%
2012 - Quick - 2.80%
2013 - Crawford - 3.80%
2014 - Quick - 9.02%
2015 - Crawford - 8.40%
2016 - Murray - 1.27%
2017 - Murray - 5.13%
2018 - Holtby - 8.13%
2019 - Binnington - 0.82%
2020 - Vasilevskiy - 11.66%
2021 - Vasilevskiy - 11.66%
2022 - Kuemper - 4.29%
2023 - Hill - 5.94%
2024 - Bobrovsky - 11.98%

Since the implementation of the cap, Vasilevskiy and Bobrovsky are aberrations, not the norm.

In the past 10 years, five of the Cup-winning goaltenders have been paid between 8-12% of the cap.

Three others - Murray twice and Binnington, were on ELCs or re-signed as RFAs.

The two others -- Keumper and Hill -- were the mid-range guys that are the exception to the rule.

If you don't have a hot, young, low-cost goalie on a roll, then you probably need to pay for what you get, and even that isn't a sure-fire guarantee.

Three of the past five years were high-priced veterans. That kind of speaks for itself these days.

 

[WarriorofTime]

I broke out the numbers for you in post #321. If you have a more insightful model please present it.

Most teams don’t win the cup, so it’s a bit silly to focus on “look at all the teams that didn’t win the cup with an expensive goalie!” More to, look at all the teams that had a very good/great goalie regardless of cap. Of course you bias yourself intentionally by pointing out cap savings because cup winners tend to have some good/great contracts somewhere. MacKinnon was on a very cheap contract when the Avs won, does this mean it’s a bad idea to pay MacKinnon and just try and find a new number 1 center for cheap? No of course not. While MacKinnon for cheap is better than MacKinnon expensive. The latter is still better than the alternative of no MacKinnon.

What we see from recent seasons is that an expensive goalie is neither necessary nor preventative from winning a cup. More to the point, citing expensive goalies that didn’t win the cup is of course a nonsense way especially as many did get close like Luongo, Lundqvist and Price. Plus Vasilevskiy or Bobrovsky who reached the finals the year after/before actually winning. But of course phrasing it entirely as “cup or bust” will bias the results incredibly. And this is of course not how we do it for any other player where if MacKinnon scores 140 points and the team loses in the first or second round, we don’t say it was a mistake to pay MacKinnon.