Is anyone really? This is literally a straw man argument because nobody is really worth millions of dollars to play a child's game. So again, still waiting for the stats you talked about that demonstrated Rask is mediocre.
But since we both know you won't actually provide that evidence, whom would you prefer in net for the Bruins? And at what salary would someone be deemed worth it, in your esteemed opinion?
From a business standpoint in terms of how much money they bring in, they are worth those millions of dollars. The fact they're playing a child's game is irrelevant. Players like Tom Brady are actually grossly underpaid for the value that they bring to a billion dollar industry. If there were no salary cap, a player like Tom Brady would be worth 100 million a year, easily.
I would prefer a goalie who is "good enough", which realistically, you'd get for anywhere from 4-5ish million on the cap. Then invest that extra 2-3 million into the team in front of the goalie, which is far more important than the goalie itself, again, in my opinion.
As for names, I don't know, that Martin Jones seems good enough and would give you 4 million extra dollars to improve the team in front of him. Rask is not 4 million dollars better than Jones. If only we could somehow acquire Martin Jones.
What would be ideal is to be able to identify talent and get high level of play from someone on an entry level deal. Malcolm Subban is playing unreal hockey in Vegas, and we let him go literally for nothing.
If you want purely stats that demonstrate Rask's recent mediocre play in the past two years, here:
2015-2016
SV% ranked 28th in the NHL among qualified goaltenders
GAA ranked 26th in the NHL among qualified goaltenders
2016-2017
SV% ranked 20th in the NHL among qualified goaltenders
GAA ranked 6th in the NHL among qualified goaltenders
Those are just the stats, with zero context of anything actually in the games. That doesn't account for quality of goals allowed, quality of saves, timing of saves, positioning, rebounding, play vs good or bad teams, anything. All of which is relevant.
In terms of just this year, Khudobin has a .925 SV% and 2.37 GAA, to Rask's .920 and 2.23. Khudobin has played less games of course, but still. Is there an almost 6 million dollar difference in the production difference in those numbers? Of course not.
For a list of names comparable to Rask, but with better cap hits that give at least 2 million more in cap wiggle room, guys who I think the Bruins could possibly be better off overall with if you invest the excess cap hit into the team in front of them. Just including starters because of the smaller sample sizes of backups:
Andersen
Bishop
Allen
Dubnyk
Anderson
Murray (obviously)
Vasilevski
Jones
Hellebuyck
