I still don't get it. How is buying him out a good idea? Four years cap hit, and who are our goalies next season?
One item is that a buyout of a 26-yearold-or-older player means paying 2/3rds of his remaining contract. And that amount is spread out over twice the remaining duration. So instead of $3.9 million caphit X 2 seasons, we'd have $1.3 million caphit X 4 seasons. The actual salary due is similarly reduced and spread out.
Hutchinson/Hellebuyck with a grand total of less than 60 NHL games?
I know that they haven't proven they're competent starters yet. However, unlike Pavelec, they haven't proven that they're
NOT competent starters yet. See
http://jets.nhl.com/club/player.htm?id=8471715&view=stats "Career Regular Season Statistics ". In addition to SV%, I'm also including the difference of (Games_won - Games_lost)
- 2007-2008 .905 0
- 2008-2009 .880 -4
- 2009-2010 .906 -4
- 2010-2011 .914 -2
- 2011-2012 .906 +1
- 2012-2013 .905 +1
- 2013-2014 .901 -4
- 2014-2015 (so far) .909 0
I.e. in his 7 seasons, going on 8, his win total has never exceeded his loss total by more than 1. Let's look at the wins minus losses count for the team in the last playoff wild card slots in the Jets 2.0 era.
- 2011-2012
- East Ottawa 41W 31L +10
- West Los Angeles 40 W 27L +13
- 2012-2013 (adjusted 48 games ==> 82 games)
- East Islanders 24W 17L +7 ==> +12
- West Minnesota 26W 19L +7 ==> +12
- 2013-2014
- East Detroit 39W 28L +11
- West Dallas 40W 31L +9
Quick-n-dirty rule of thumb... a team's W total needs to exceed their L total by 12 to comfortably get into the playoffs. Dallas got in on a fluke last season when Phoenix's Shane Doan came down with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Phoenix had looked like a lock for a playoff spot, but they totally collapse after Doan's ilness, missing the playoffs by 2 points.
Anyhow, Pavelec has never had better than a +1 year. That is simply not good enough. Pavelec is zero (W - L) this year. Hutchinson is +12 so far this year, which is why we're in the 2nd wild card slot right now.