Confirmed with Link: Gibson re-signs with Anaheim (8 years/6.4m AAV)

[Goose of Reason]

Saw "Confirmed With Link: Gibson" and my heart skipped a beat. Thank God it's just a bump reminding us how amazing of a contract he has.

 

[Ducks DVM]

Looking at the last decade or so, paying off your goaltender appears to be a good way to NOT win the Cup. Very few wins where a goalie getting paid for UFA years was the main goalie carrying the team.

 

[DigiDuck]

Better goalie. Better contract.

 

[duckpuck]

Looking at the last decade or so, paying off your goaltender appears to be a good way to NOT win the Cup. Very few wins where a goalie getting paid for UFA years was the main goalie carrying the team.

Not sure what you mean by "main goalie carrying the team", but in the last decade, Holtby, Quick and Crawford each won one cup during their UFA years. I believe Fleury won 1 as well during his ufa years (2009) but not giving him credit for 2016 or 2017 Murray was better).

I think the real issue is you can't win when OVER paying a goalie during UFA years - too hard to build a roster and lots of variance. I think Vasilevsky, Price, and Bobrovsky are in that category. But that just means Gibson's contract is that much better. Even a borderline staring goallie makes $4-5M. The ducks are not paying much more than that for an elite goal tender during his prime years when his peers will make 50% more. That's amazing - even if Gibson has a few injuries or bad years in the mix.

Here's a list of goaltender salaries. No starting goaltenders who recently signed UFA deals got less than around $5M - henceforth called the Ben Bishop line.

NHL Rankings

 

[Ducks DVM]

Not sure what you mean by "main goalie carrying the team", but in the last decade, Holtby, Quick and Crawford each won one cup during their UFA years. I believe Fleury won 1 as well during his ufa years (2009) but not giving him credit for 2016 or 2017 Murray was better).

I think the real issue is you can't win when OVER paying a goalie during UFA years - too hard to build a roster and lots of variance. I think Vasilevsky, Price, and Bobrovsky are in that category. But that just means Gibson's contract is that much better. Even a borderline staring goallie makes $4-5M. The ducks are not paying much more than that for an elite goal tender during his prime years when his peers will make 50% more. That's amazing - even if Gibson has a few injuries or bad years in the mix.

Here's a list of goaltender salaries. No starting goaltenders who recently signed UFA deals got less than around $5M - henceforth called the Ben Bishop line.

NHL Rankings

I’d say anything above a 50% miss rate is making my point for me.

Winning goalie/losing goalie
‘19 - Binnington 650K/ Rask 4M
‘18 - Holtby 6M/Fleury 7M
‘17 - Murray 628K/ Rinne 7M
‘16 - Murray 628K/ Jones 3M
‘15 - Campbell 6M/ Bishop 2.3M
‘14 - Quick 5.8M/ Lundqvist 8.5M
‘13 - Crawford 2.7M/ Rask 3.5M
‘12 - Quick 1.8M, Brodeur 5.2M
‘10 - Niemi 826K/ Leighton 600K (although in fairness traffic cones would have been better than either)
‘09 - Fleury 5M/ 800K
‘08 - Osgood 1.7M /Fleury 1.3M
‘07 - Giguere 4M, Emery 925K
‘06 - Ward 684K/ Roloson 3M

Quick (5.8M)won in the first year of that contract, zero playoff series wins since (1 playoff game won since). Crawford (6M) won in the first year of that contract, zero playoff series wins since (3 playoff games total won since). Holtby (6.1M) is an outlier in that he won in his 4th year, also has 3 playoff wins since but that’s meaningless at this point. Fleury got paid, and then made the Penguins irrelevant past the 2nd round for a decade. Giguere was on a 4 year deal.

You’re correct about UFA salaries. The thing is, only the top end guys usually got those extra long contracts that they had to pay 3-5 UFA years for - and NONE of those teams won after those contracts were in effect except for 2 1st year wins and Ovechkin actually playing both ends of the ice. Evidence says that >3-4M for your goalie will probably make you not win a Cup.

Yes, there’s a lot of other variables in play, but the presence of a Vezina goalie who is getting paid appropriately appears to make it more likely to result in not winning the Cup.

Edit - and Quick won in his 7th year, which is an RFA year.

 

[duckpuck]

I’d say anything above a 50% miss rate is making my point for me.

Yes, there’s a lot of other variables in play, but the presence of a Vezina goalie who is getting paid appropriately appears to make it more likely to result in not winning the Cup.

Edit - and Quick won in his 7th year, which is an RFA year.

I think your confusing correlation (if there is one, which isn't clear) with causation. Having a highly paid goalie does not "result" in not winning the cup or even make it less likely. But having an elite goalie clearly isn't a requirements.

Add to that the fact that only one team wins a cup each year, so a 50% strike rate (your number) for elite goalies is actually better than one would expect.

Really, what your saying is UFAs - at all positions - often are overpaid. And the corollary is that young players tend to be underpaid, so a young goalie like Binnington or Murphy could be really good even if their not yet highly paid.

Quick is a good example. Until the last 1-2 years, he was still regarded as elite. But the team around him was worse then the cup years because of all the aging players with big contracts who under performed (Kopitar, Brown, Carter, Phaneuf, and last year, Doughty). Quick's play and his contract weren't the problem. Trade the current version of Quick to Calgary, and he might be the reason they win the cup.

I think the better argument is that the difference between an elite goalie and average one is not very big in terms of goals allowed, so it generally doesn't make sense to pay a big premium for "elite." That is a pretty commonly held view, particularly because there's pretty big variance in a playoff series. That being said, having a goalie who is very good on the penalty kill and/or against high probability shots is probably very valuable - and statistically that's were Gibson has been really, really, REALLY good. He's worth the extra $1-2.5M money, though I think the Price/Vasilevski/Bobrovsky contracts are too big given cap constraints. And Bobrovsky's term is brutal.

 

[Ducks DVM]

I think your confusing correlation (if there is one, which isn't clear) with causation. Having a highly paid goalie does not "result" in not winning the cup or even make it less likely. But having an elite goalie clearly isn't a requirements.

Add to that the fact that only one team wins a cup each year, so a 50% strike rate (your number) for elite goalies is actually better than one would expect.

Really, what your saying is UFAs - at all positions - often are overpaid. And the corollary is that young players tend to be underpaid, so a young goalie like Binnington or Murphy could be really good even if their not yet highly paid.

Quick is a good example. Until the last 1-2 years, he was still regarded as elite. But the team around him was worse then the cup years because of all the aging players with big contracts who under performed (Kopitar, Brown, Carter, Phaneuf, and last year, Doughty). Quick's play and his contract weren't the problem. Trade the current version of Quick to Calgary, and he might be the reason they win the cup.

I think the better argument is that the difference between an elite goalie and average one is not very big in terms of goals allowed, so it generally doesn't make sense to pay a big premium for "elite." That is a pretty commonly held view, particularly because there's pretty big variance in a playoff series. That being said, having a goalie who is very good on the penalty kill and/or against high probability shots is probably very valuable - and statistically that's were Gibson has been really, really, REALLY good. He's worth the extra $1-2.5M money, though I think the Price/Vasilevski/Bobrovsky contracts are too big given cap constraints. And Bobrovsky's term is brutal.

You say I mistake correlation and causation, then go on to simply rephrase what I said with your last paragraph.

 

[duckpuck]

You say I mistake correlation and causation, then go on to simply rephrase what I said with your last paragraph.

No - you said "the presence of a Vezina goalie who is getting paid appropriately appears to make it more likely to result in not winning the Cup."

Those are your words - verbatim.

 

[AngelDuck]

One of the more impressive contracts of the last three years for Murray

It was great at the time and even better now

 

[Ducks DVM]

No - you said "the presence of a Vezina goalie who is getting paid appropriately appears to make it more likely to result in not winning the Cup."

Those are your words - verbatim.

And yours are I think the better argument is that the difference between an elite goalie and average one is not very big in terms of goals allowed, so it generally doesn't make sense to pay a big premium for "elite."


That’s...the same message.

Clearly, I was implying that the salary requirements that preclude that the team is short 1-3 other players’ salaries isn’t possible when you pay a top end salary, and that the Vezina level goaltending wasn’t enough to overcome that. Which is pretty much exactly what you said.

Did you really think I was merely saying that having a top flight goalie was a bad thing?

 

[Boo Boo]

Remember a few years ago when we thought Gibson was going to run away to Pittsburgh on us? Its so nice to know that our franchise player liked it enough to take a discount to stay here long term. Seems like a pretty positive sign for the locker room and retaining future free agents

 

[Paul4587]

One of the more impressive contracts of the last three years for Murray

It was great at the time and even better now

Yep. Think on the whole team only Rakell has a better contract. Assuming a bouncback of course. Kase might do but he’s always injured and he doesn’t have much term to really be a bargain for long.