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Player Discussion: The Elvis Thread

CBJWerenski8 said:
Elvis also comes with ego and a reputation for being hard to deal with. I’m almost certain he has zero trade value, and if bought out, might have to earn his way onto an NHL team with a good camp and preseason.

Even if his statline suggests NHL goalie, teams don’t like noisy locker rooms or individuals. We’ve been full of both of those over the last few years, and he’s been at the center of a lot of it. Under multiple different coaches.
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At some point this year has to count for something. I heard many quotes today from many different players on how special this locker room was and either DW or DE said there were literally no locker room issues this year. Not even small ones.
 
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Just for reference, here are the goalies we drafted between 2007 and 2021. These are the goalies that would be 22-36 now which seems like the age range for most goalies. (Bob is 36, for instance. He was obtained from Philadelphia.) Mason was drafted in 2006. Kivlenieks was an undrafted free agent signed out of the USHL. Greaves was an undrafted free agent out of the OHL who didn’t play the 2020-21 season. We have drafted three goalies since 2022 (Ivanov, Strahl, and Gardner).

Anton Forsberg (2011 7th) Ottawa 11-12-3 2.72 .901
Joonas Korpisalo (2012 3rd) Boston 11-10-3 2.90 .893
Elvis Merzlikins (2014 3rd) CBJ 26-21-5 3.18 .892
Daniil Tarasov (2017 3rd) CBJ 7-10-2 3.54 .881
Oskar Dansk (2012 2nd) AHL 11-18-4 3.47 .886
Veini Vehvilainen (2018 6th) Finland maybe a Finn could get us his stats
Peter Thome (2016 6th) not playing
Mathieu Corbeil-Theriault (2010 4th) not playing

Now we can argue about our defense (268 goals against) vs Boston’s defense (272 goals against) vs. Ottawa’s defense (234 goals against) and say Forsberg had an advantage, and I won’t disagree, but the interesting thing about the numbers is Merzlikins, Korpisalo, and Forsberg is they seem to be the same tier of goalie.

Korpisalo has a $4 million cap hit to back up Swayman, with Ottawa taking 25% of the cap hit, so he has a $3 million cap hit for Boston. Forsberg has a $2.75 million cap hit to back up Ullmark.

So an acceptable cap hit for that tier of goalie appears to be $2.75 - $3 million.

Elvis has a cap hit of $5.4 million. With 50% retention his cap hit would be $2.7 which seems reasonable compared to Forsberg and Korpi.

So if we trade Elvis, sign Andersen or Allen or a comparable guy to a contract for about a $3.5 to $4 million contract for one or two years, and have Jet be in some sort of tandem with a veteran, we will be spending $7 to $7.5 million for goalies (Greaves at $812,000, $2.7 million retention for Elvis, and whatever we pay a vet goalie). This seems like a decent path forward to me.

If we don’t trade Elvis and run with Greaves and Elvis with the idea of the best guy plays more, we will be spending $6.2 for goalies with the idea that maybe Elvis is a Forsberg/Korpi level back up who is overpaid but we would have had to retain to trade him anyway, so that is ok. I think this is a decent path forward for next season as long as we have really good communication and buy in.

If you send Elvis to the AHL or something, that saves about a million dollars of his cap hit, but you would still be on the hook for most of his cap hit plus all of his salary and you still would need to bring in another goalie. If you buy out Elvis, you are pushing his cap hit into the 28-29 season when I hope we will be a contender for the Cup. And you would need to bring in another goalie.
 
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EspenK said:
Except there were major goaltending issues on the ice...
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Yet again, separating the person from the performance.

Do more pucks need stopped? Yes. Was he a bad person at all? No.

As DW said, he won more games than he lost for the team this year, he just needs more consistency. However constantly calling him a locker room distraction is false at this point.
 
For those wishing Elvis to be gone this off-season, another UFA option has signed with their current team. I gotta be honest nothing would make me less excited about next season except running it back with Elvis for another season.

 
Doggy said:
For those wishing Elvis to be gone this off-season, another UFA option has signed with their current team. I gotta be honest nothing would make me less excited about next season except running it back with Elvis for another season.

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Waddell simply can’t allow Elvis to return. Did he improve last year? Yes, but he was still near the bottom of all metrics and his usual unreliable performer.

Was his defense in front of him great? I don’t think so but how they played in the final games with Jet makes me question their potential….while at the same time affirming Elvis is the solution to nothing. Maybe theirs limited free agent goalie candidates, but trades are always available.
 
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MoeBartoli said:
Waddell simply can’t allow Elvis to return. Did he improve last year? Yes, but he was still near the bottom of all metrics and his usual unreliable performer.

Was his defense in front of him great? I don’t think so but how they played in the final games with Jet makes me question their potential….while at the same time affirming Elvis is the solution to nothing. Maybe theirs limited free agent goalie candidates, but trades are always available.
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They relied pretty heavily on Jet at the end which is great for us and Jet as he really showed the team he's earned an NHL job. Still think Jake Allen is the guy to grab if they get rid of Elvis one way or another
 
Evason, who is currently in Europe with Team Canada ahead of the Worlds, was asked by The Athletic before he left Columbus why it took so long for the Blue Jackets to give goaltender Jet Greaves the starting job as the club stumbled through most of the stretch drive. Greaves was in net for the five straight wins at the end of the season, stopping 156 of 160 shots (a .975 save percentage).

Here’s Evason: “Obviously, hindsight is awesome. Did we know (Greaves would play like that)? Obviously, if we did, he would have been with us sooner. Did we talk about it? Yes, of course. Did we evaluate what was best for the organization and best for Jet? Yeah. Don’t forget, Elvis (Merlikins) played extremely well, and I know, probably, the numbers are going to come back (not so great), but he held us in games. He won games for us. It’s easy now to look back and say maybe he should have been here earlier, but there were a lot of factors and circumstances that played into it. Was it great to see Jet play like that at the end? Do we believe he can continue to do that? The answer to both is yes. Yes, we do.”
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Honestly, going with Elvis / Jet duo might not be so bad especially if the starter job is up for grabs for whoever shows he deserves it and Elvis can handle that. The way the last few years have gone, Elvis should realize he's in no position to come up with some "I'm not a backup goalie" bullshit, or if he still feels like that, he needs to understand he might need to look at playing in some other league for that.

Like Mikko Lehtonen was 100% NHL quality D-man but he figured he just enjoys hockey more getting to play "his game" in a lesser league rather than try to make in the NHL. Fair enough, he put his money where his mouth was and went to do just that, instead of whining "he's a top pairing guy" or something.
 
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