Witnessing the End of Paying a Premium for Goalies?

[ScaredStreit]

If we're being honest, he wasn't worth it until the 22-23 playoff run. He lost the starting job to Alex Lyon at the end of the season/start of the playoffs and took it back.

They've won a cup and made 2 finals appearances (at least) since that contract (and Bob was a HUGE part of that)...and you're going to nitpick a few down years to say it's not a great contract? There's not a team in the league-hell in all of professional sports- who would pass on signing a star player to a long and expensive contract if it ends with the kind of success Florida has had.

But I guess they could have gotten a decent goaltender who would keep them as a playoff team for less money and isn't having good players to great contracts the goal of teams? What were they thinking?

 

[Gizmoskevich]

They've won a cup and made 2 finals appearances (at least) since that contract (and Bob was a HUGE part of that)...and you're going to nitpick a few down years to say it's not a great contract? There's not a team in the league-hell in all of professional sports- who would pass on signing a star player to a long and expensive contract if it ends with the kind of success Florida has had.

But I guess they could have gotten a decent goaltender who would keep them as a playoff team for less money and isn't having good players to great contracts the goal of teams? What were they thinking?

That’s not what I was inferring. It was looking like a terrible contract UNTIL he managed to turn it all around in the 22-23 playoffs.

In hindsight yes it’s a fine contract but the first few years looked like an anchor to be eventually bought out.

 

[Troy McClure]

They key is to not take the middle approach. Either you have an elite goalie that might be worth paying for your team, or you run with a grab bag of cheapos. No in-between or half measures. Paying a guy 5 or 6 mil to give you replacement level results or worse on a stacked team is a waste of cap and isn't a + differentiator.

But can a GM running the grab bag approach keep his job very long if his cheap goaltending gamble fails him multiple times?

 

[Edmonton East]

But can a GM running the grab bag approach keep his job very long if his cheap goaltending gamble fails him multiple times?

Yea, that's the big challenge of it, right? Same reason NFL GMs give out massive $$$$$ to average or below average QBs and pretty much never win a ship.

 

[WaitingForThatCab]

You could, but that says more about the boards than Bob

I disagree. Bobrovsky's contract was utterly putrid for his first two seasons here. I would say the factors here were:

1. He wasn't comfortable behind the team or with the coaching, something he's said outright in an interview a couple of years ago.

2. He was honestly right on that point. The Panthers defensive structure STUNK and he was left being asked to do too much, too frequently.

3. The flat cap suddenly made it more of a squeeze than we thought it would be when he signed it.


Obviously, the guy looks much better playing behind a great defensive structure that means he's really asked to excel in one area: against breakaways and odd man rushes when the forecheck gives up a rush chance. And since that's exactly when he's at his best, this is suddenly a great contract.

 

[Alexei Yashvalev]

I don't think anyone cares if five years of a contract are bad if you win the cup in the 6th.

Lord knows I wouldn't.

 

[WarriorofTime]

If we're being honest, he wasn't worth it until the 22-23 playoff run. He lost the starting job to Alex Lyon at the end of the season/start of the playoffs and took it back.

Think people just need to accept this as part of the volatility of goaltending.

A starting NHL Goalie is not like a starting NFL Quarterback. In the NFL, the QB starts every game and takes every meaningful snap. The backup straight up doesn't play. The Starting QB only ceases to be the starting QB if he gets injured or performs particularly poorly and is benched. In the NHL, every team has two goaltenders and both of them will play. The starting goalie doesn't start every single game.. every team's backup goalie will start somewhere between 20-30 games even when there's a clear starter/backup goalie hierarchy.

Thus, no matter how much a goalie makes or their track record, there's always going to be a potential opportunity for the backup to outplay the starter and "take" the job. Thus, no the starting goaltender's position is never 100% secure because of this opportunity. People make a big deal out of a starting goalie that gets "benched" but it's actually fairly normal and possible. Certainly you give the one guy as much a chance to prove himself over the other, but especially come playoffs, you're not sitting around waiting games or playing contract politics. You go with whomever's playing better at a given moment.

Argument against paying a premium? Sure. Just a reality of goaltending's inherent volatility.

 

[Alexei Yashvalev]

Just a reality of goaltending's inherent volatility.

Goaltending since the introduction of modern sticks is basically luck based if their positioning is correct.

 

[NVious]

Bob proving his worth.

What's crazy is the Leafs easily could've gone up 3-0, they had I believe either 2 breakaways in OT or another one was when it was tied, Bob stopped them both. Then in game 4 I remember Nylander and Tavares both had breakaways, I believe when it was tied or 1-0, again nada. 0/4 in breakaways in absolutely the most important/difficult part of the Panthers run so far.

I guess you could use Helle as the counter example, but he is his own headcase and in no way related to Bob or necessarily other top paid goalies.

 

[Summer Rose]

I don't think anyone cares if five years of a contract are bad if you win the cup in the 6th.

Lord knows I wouldn't.

I was going to post something similar, but you beat me to it.

It's fair to say that there are multiple ways to build a champion, including methods that do not include paying for premium goaltending. While a reasonable point, saying that it's possible to do it that way does not mean it is impossible to do it another way.

Since the goaltending position has a somewhat close equivalent of the quarterback in football, and I'm a Utah (previously Coyotes) fan in the former and a Cardinals fan in the latter, I've never seen either team win a championship in my lifetime. If we were to give a goaltender stupid money and he delivered one championship despite sucking in all the other years of his contract, I'd take that, likewise if the Cardinals paid a quarterback stupid money and he delivered a single Super Bowl despite sucking in all the other years of his contract, I'd take that too.

tl;dr I agree.

 

[WarriorofTime]

And even when you look back at teams who go on a run with cheap goaltending, the end result is the goaltending stops being cheap when that goalie is up for a new contract. It's very rare for a team to let their cheap goalie go instead of paying him.

This proposition is built on continually churning goalies rather than paying one, and we've yet to see a team figure out how to get multiple runs out of a rotation of cheap goalies.

Toronto has basically tried to go cheap money puck every year beginning 2021-22 and gotten pretty volatile results.

2017: Andersen ($5 million)
2018: Andersen ($5 million)
2019: Andersen ($5 million)
2020: Andersen ($5 million)
2021: Campbell ($1.65 million) -> Andersen benched
2022: Campbell ($1.65 million) -> Mrazek ($3.8 million UFA benched, then dealt in offseason)
2023: Samsonov ($1.8 million) -> Murray ($4.687 million IR'd)
2024: Samsonov ($3.55 million)
2025: Stolarz ($2.5 million)/Woll ($0.776 million)

Next year they'll save same tandem but Woll bumped up to $3.667 million

 

[Mike C]

But can a GM running the grab bag approach keep his job very long if his cheap goaltending gamble fails him multiple times?

No

 

[Mike C]

I was going to post something similar, but you beat me to it.

It's fair to say that there are multiple ways to build a champion, including methods that do not include paying for premium goaltending. While a reasonable point, saying that it's possible to do it that way does not mean it is impossible to do it another way.

Since the goaltending position has a somewhat close equivalent of the quarterback in football, and I'm a Utah (previously Coyotes) fan in the former and a Cardinals fan in the latter, I've never seen either team win a championship in my lifetime. If we were to give a goaltender stupid money and he delivered one championship despite sucking in all the other years of his contract, I'd take that, likewise if the Cardinals paid a quarterback stupid money and he delivered a single Super Bowl despite sucking in all the other years of his contract, I'd take that too.

tl;dr I agree.

The most important players on a team are the starting G and the starting QB

The 2nd most important players are the backup G and the backup QB

 

[x Tame Impala]

Your goalie just can’t be your best player. There’s a reason Price and Lundqvist never won Cups while Crawford, Quick, and Murray won a combined 7 of them

 

[SharksFan1992]

If all the new 'adjusted' and 'advanced' stats that experts like Kevin Woodley keep pointing out how the goals let in are a direct reflection of the play in front of them, then shouldn't the trend for elite teams be to simply invest more money in the defence and 3-4th lines instead of paying a goalie anything over $5,000,000?

Like what's happening in the NFL. Teams are waking up to fact investing tens of millions in a RB is wasted cap space. They injure easily and have short careers. Invest in an elite O-line and any plug-in RB can rush for 1,000 yards.

 

[UED]

Paying a lot for goalies has never been a good idea, the top paid goalies never win, Bobrovsky last year(and possibly this year) is a huge outlier and they aren't winning because of him, which really just makes it even more shocking, but they get away with it because everyone from the stars to the #6D in Florida makes 1M less than they should so their 20M advantage negates their 10M handicap. Before the salary cap the best goalies won every cup but as soon as they introduced it suddenly now they all retire career losers. You can almost tell who the best goalies were by sorting backwards by cup wins. Too much money for too little impact. At the end of the day a goalie's about as good as the defense, maybe the best ones will stop one extra goal per 2 or 3 games but the best defense will stop 1 or 2 goals every single game. Most people don't notice patterns, that includes NHL GMs, for example you seem to only be noticing it this year but it's been a thing since 2006, so I don't think there will ever be a "cheap goalies meta".

 

[cowboy82nd]

Even crazier stat to back this up:

Toronto Maple Leafs Players Blocked Shots (Saves): 177
Toronto Maple Leafs BOTH Goalies Combined Saves): 178

The Leafs players have blocked as many shots as the goalies have faced.

So you are saying that we should just put a player in net to play goal than a goalie? You know, since the whole team combined has blocked about the same as one player has faced. Sounds right.

 

[Mogo]

Bob seems to be the last big money will take of business goalies. One of those goalies you cant get into his head no matter what happens

 

[SharksFan1992]

Your goalie just can’t be your best player. There’s a reason Price and Lundqvist never won Cups while Crawford, Quick, and Murray won a combined 7 of them

Quick was the Kings' best player in 2012. Crawford arguably should have won the Conn Smythe in 2013. Murray....yeah I don't know how the heck Murray won 2 Stanley Cups.

 

[NVious]

Paying a lot for goalies has never been a good idea, the top paid goalies never win, Bobrovsky last year(and possibly this year) is a huge outlier and they aren't winning because of him, which really just makes it even more shocking, but they get away with it because everyone from the stars to the #6D in Florida makes 1M less than they should so their 20M advantage negates their 10M handicap. Before the salary cap the best goalies won every cup but as soon as they introduced it suddenly now they all retire career losers. You can almost tell who the best goalies were by sorting backwards by cup wins. Too much money for too little impact. At the end of the day a goalie's about as good as the defense, maybe the best ones will stop one extra goal per 2 or 3 games but the best defense will stop 1 or 2 goals every single game. Most people don't notice patterns, that includes NHL GMs, for example you seem to only be noticing it this year but it's been a thing since 2006, so I don't think there will ever be a "cheap goalies meta".

The sample size is still very small and simultaneously all the 3-7mill goalies that didn't win the cup are totally ignored. The 3 highest paid goalies (Bob/Price/Vassy) after this year will have at least 5 finals and two cup wins.

Anyways lets say a goalie crosses that 10 mill threshold, do you think if he took 7-8m that's the difference between winning a cup and not, a 2-3 mill player?

Some guys are gonna get paid market value, that's life. Great teams need to find ways to draft well and attract FAs, nobody can do it in perpetuity, but it needs to get done.

Ultimately guys like Bob and Vassy have proven you can with with highly paid goalies and even an older Price proved if you have great goaltending you can always get a miracle run.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Quick was the Kings' best player in 2012. Crawford arguably should have won the Conn Smythe in 2013. Murray....yeah I don't know how the heck Murray won 2 Stanley Cups.

The Habs and Rangers never had anyone near the level of Toews, Kane, Keith, Doughty, Kopitar, etc…Hank and Price were relied on to carry their teams. That formula will never work. Lots of ways to win a Cup but I’m certain that’s not the way to do it.

 

[WaitingForThatCab]

That’s not what I was inferring. It was looking like a terrible contract UNTIL he managed to turn it all around in the 22-23 playoffs.

In hindsight yes it’s a fine contract but the first few years looked like an anchor to be eventually bought out.

As someone who was a vocal critic of the Bobrovsky contract in the past, I would also add that he turned it around in the '22 playoffs. He was superb against Tampa. Vasilevsky (and the Lightning) were simply better.

That was when I thought he turned the corner.

 

[ijuka]

Bob was pretty meh earlier on, but lately he's been locked in. Even then, I think that it's more of a case of Florida being able to get away with paying a premium for a goalie due to having so many other high-value contracts, rather than paying 10.5mil AAV for a goalie being particularly beneficial for them.

But of course, Panthers could also be in the Oilers' position where they keep pissing away elite years of performance time and again due to poor goaltending. But even then, you can look at someone like Hellebuyck for what paying a premium for a goalie could also bring you.

I still don't think that it's a very good move in general. For every highly paid top goalie, there is a bargain top goalie. But for every McDavid and MacKinnon, there actually is no bargain skater, unless we're talking about generational ELCers. Skaters tend to be far safer bets, and far more difficult to acquire without making such bets.

 

[bigbadbruins1]

The issue with that is you need to have had impeccable drafting, free agency, etc. to be able to pull off the revolving goalie door. The number 1 goalie is now more of a 1A and you still need a B goalie, its been shown time over the last few years having a 10M+ goalie still play 60+ games doesn't work out anymore, they burn out by the playoffs.
Better off finding two goalies and playing the tandem route.

 

[JaegerDice]

This shit goes through ebbs and flows all the time.

In 2010, you'd think you could have picked a bum off the street to play goal and win a cup.

The Flyers basically watched their chances of a cup in the 2010s get blown up cause their senile owner told their GM 'Go get me a Tim Thomas'... and then that GM got Bryzgalov.

Then LAK and CHI won cups with guys making 5-6 million.

That continued until Vasi's contract, then everybody went goalie crazy, then the Avs reminded everybody 'actually, no, you can win if your goalie is mid but you have a god on defense', Aiden Hill followed suit, and now everybody is pretending you need a god in net cause Bobrovsky finally won.