Well. That is one way to put a time limit on a team...

https://www.capfriendly.com/players/joe-pavelski

Edit: Oh, sorry. You probably meant because I only gave Gudas three years. Gud catch!

What about him?
Holtby is already looking and more likely than not Backstrom will continue to decline in actual play. One example of a freak of nature doesn't mean everyone can play forever.

With goalie Bob getting 10 million, hasn't that raised the price of all pending UFA goalies?
Why does Holtby settle for half of what Bob got when Holtby is the one with cup win to show?

Doesn't make sense to me.

Hard pass on Holtby. Samsonov is the future now. Plus he'll go out and get $10M somewhere. The absolute lowest he'd go with Washington is probably $9M and that's way too much for a 30 yo.

I like Backstorm but I'm not getting mixed into that contract. Do 4 year deal around $8.5M.

Don't need Dadonov, though I do like him.

What the hell has Johansen done to get that contract?

Fehervary, Alexeyev, and probably McMichael will be on this team by then.

Bobrovsky has two Vezinas and Holtby only has one? Bob carried a weak team to the playoffs and Fla hoped he could do the same? I don't know, but with the low trade offers for Hotlby on here and the low UFA offers nobody's even imagining for him, I think 5M per, with some front loading so it starts at 8 or 9? I think that could be the offer that guarantees him 30 or 40 million total in the rest of his career. After all,


Seems like you all can talk this one out amongst yourselves.

It was also Bob's first playoff series win in how many tries? Bob definitely got overpaid but that also means other goalies will get more than what you gave Holtby in this ACGM.

Holtby has a Cup. Enough said. There's is exactly 0% chance Holtby signs under $9M. It isn't going to happen.

Johansen has put up .33 points/game in the AHL, for over two years. On several teams that's enough to get a call-up. No idea what his role is in Hershey right now.

Hershey can try to win a Calder Cup in the next two years around McMichael, Leason, Clark, Sutter, Alexeyev, Fehervary, Vanecek, and Samsonov. Washington can try to win a Stanley Cup around Ovechkin, who is welcome to stick around on a bunch of one year deals, starting at 10 and declining.



The Cap went up less than expected last year. Most teams have no cap space to make big offers. Several fans on this board would not trade for Holtby at his current salary. If some team offers him 9M, term might be one year or two. If that team isn't the right fit for his style, or if he doesn't get along with the coaches, he could lose another starting job. After two in two years, he's signing somewhere else on a one year, 4M deal, hoping to prove something, hoping to stay in North america. Add up the expected value of the rest of that career, and it might be less than 20, starting next year. On a front loaded eight year deal that starts at 8 and counts down, he passes 20M in year three, without buying any new houses or having to pack up and move his family. AFter that, if hockey gets difficult, he can retire. Or if he stays at his current level, he can keep playing and having fun.

It's basically two more Oshie deals, but instead of giving them to a new guy who's been an Olympic hero, they go to the best center and goalie in franchise history.

You're severely underpaying the pending UFAs

As above, they're having a bad year. Crosby and Malkin routinely leave money on the table. Weber signed a gradually decreasing deal to pay him what he was worth in his prime, and then give him the option to play forever, or retire whenever he's ready

Holtby's compensaiton by year: 8.5, 7.5, 6.5, 5.5, 4.5, 3.5, 2.5, 1.5. Total: 40M over 8. Cap hit, 5M. Can retire after three years and call it 22.5 over 3, (like a 7.5x3 deal he might actually get as a UFA next summer) or he can stick around as long as he's having fun.

Backstrom's: 9.75, 8.75, etc. Total: 52 over 8. Cap hit, 6.25. Can quit after three years and pocket 8.75x3. Or he can stick around as long as he's happy. Yes. That's an eighth of a million higher than the above. But there's cap space, and you convinced me to give him a raise. Or it's too early for fractions. One of those.

So the big question is whether Samsonov, Alexeyev, McMichael, and Fehervary can keep improving with another year in the AHL. If the team likes the coaches it has in Hershey and they're good teachers, then I don't see why not.

Cam Ward and Jonathan Quick want you to be their agent. Name your commission. They're pretty excited about it.

edit: whoa. A third call just came in from some guy with a funny accent calling himself, "Nemo?" I don't know. Sounds fishy.



Okay, then. Pageau?



Burakovsky and Bowey were brought up kind of early and traded away kind of cheap. Johansen will be out of waiver exemption. Djoos has won a Cup. Putting them on waivers to rush Fehervary into a Bowey situation where his ups and downs get magnified by the modern, stats-literate DC press is lose-lose. It's not just talent evaluation. It's asset management.

Luongo's contract was bad, and Florida traded for it. Tim Thomas later played for 5M a year with a Cup and a Vezina. Bobrovsky's contract is bad, and Florida signed it. Good for them. Other teams will carry on.

Hotlby is playing slightly worse than Pekka RInne right now, on the above chart, and Rinne, who is 36 years old, just extended for two years at a 5M cap hit. More term for a young guy can be seen as leaving money on the table, but Holtby is 32. More term is more money. If you see a scenario where any 32 year old goalie bounces around the league for their last four to six good years and pockets more than $40M, please explain.

I see Niemi, Thomas, Ward, and Neuvirth as equally relevant comparables.

Your graphs are really confusing, by the way. It seems like your biggest knock on Holtby is that he's 19th in ice time because Samsonov is getting an audition behind him, like Murray did behind Fleury.

I have no idea what you're saying about Backstrom, but he's been good enough for long enough to be worth what I'm suggesting.

Both Backstrom and Holtby will get far more then what you're offering here.

But with what term, at their current ages? Is there any team that will pay Backstrom more than 50M total, or Holtby more than 40M total? Or are there just basement teams that would give them a higher cap hit for two or three years and end their careers without another shot at the title?

How's that working out for Mike Green, now? Big UFA plans next summer? Higher total career earnings than if he'd worked out something cheap and long term to just stay in Washington? Or a little less total money and no more shots at the title... and how did it work out for Neuvirth when he refused to become Holtby's backup and tested free agency? Big star yet?

I think Oshie's on track to finish top-30 in goals again, this year, playing with Backstrom. Seems like a good situation, where a lot of good players have decided to work together and keep trying to win.

The goalies graph has nothing to do with time on ice. It is goals saved above expectation. Basically it's sv% that takes into account the team in front of the goalie. Being below zero is below replacement level. Holtby has been below replacement for a while now. Do not give him money or term.

Backstrom has been good, but he is declining. Don't pay for what he did in the past, pay for what he will do over that contract. That is to say, don't give him that contract

Interesting take, but graphs without keys are noise. The goalie graph has a key at the top right. You might want to read it, because no. Edit... okay, maybe...? It's just not very clear. You're saying what I thought it said last night. But a dozen or so games at the start of the season aren't that significant for goalies. Lots of backup goalies can come up and play ten solid games in a row in the NHL. But then they get worn out by the workload. Guys who can put up average starter numbers year after year are in demand. Not for 10M, but some demand.

That literally just says the cutoff for time on ice to only show starters. I know what the graph means. Don't try to lecture me on it just because you don't understand it. If you don't want to trust me, go to @chartinghockey on twitter. That is where it is from.

The bars are gsaa.
The colour is shots allowed on net (purple being fewer and yellow being more)
The toi Is just a cut off.

That's a good key. Put text like this with graphs, and they can be really helpful! Thanks.

I still stand by my point that XGF doesn't yet incorporate cross-ice passes, screens, shot speed, or how far the goalie had to move, perpendicular to the shot, to stop it. Each of those can be as important as the distance the shot comes from. I'm sure that's all coming soon. Meanwhile, Holtby has a Vezina trophy and a Stanely Cup, and is the starting goalie for the 1st place team in the NHL, and nobody thinks he's worth 5M under an 81.5M cap.

What's interesting is that everyone else on here disagreed with my post in saying it was too little cap hit for these guys. You are convinced it's too much. None of you guys are talking to each other. Just to me. I still think I got their contracts at a happy medium where they're slight wins both for them and for the team. I think I'm drastically underpaying Dadonov, on a short term deal, but if he wants a Cup, and a chance to play with Ovechkin and Kuznetsov, maybe just maybe he works with the cap space available, in order to be a part of something big.

The stuff about Backstrom's XGF being only one standard deviation ahead of an average NHLer as he starts this season slowly makes sense. His point total is down and the Caps' goal scoring isn't super high. But they're scoring enough to win most of their games and then playing average defense and putting out an above average penalty kill. That's a different approach from last year when they had to score (edited: tons of goals) to stay in games because their defense was a bit below average and their penalty kill was pretty bad. So is Backstrom worse this year, or is he just coasting until the playoffs? Have to wait and see, but at a 6M cap hit, I think he's worth the risk.

For comparison, do you want to show us Zuccarello's charts?

The way Gsaa is calculated is by using xGF, which is literally all of what you just described.



1) He isn't anymore. Anyone who pays him that is paying for past performance. Dont pay for the past, pay for what he will bring while under contract.
2) I am more worried about the term myself, but I wouldn't touch those guys with a 10 foot pole. If Backstrom wanted 3@8.5 then maybe, but even then he is being overpaid for what he will be bringing during that deal.
3)RAPM tries to adjust for all of that. It is the most even playing field possible, both team to team and year to year.
4) It is a pain to get them on CF, so feel free to look for yourself. Here are the two charts I tend to use as a first look.
RAPM: https://evolving-hockey.com (go to the RAPM section and click charts)
Microstats: https://public.tableau.com/profile/christopher.turtoro#!/vizhome/2-yearA3ZPlayerComps/ComparisonDashboard

I just noticed I have been writing Gsaa and not GSAx. This chart measures GSAx, which takes into account the things you outlined.

It does? Really? Because I just made some of that up on the spot!

Goals Saved Above eXpectation
Well what are the expectations?
xG (xGF = expected goals for, xGA = expected goals against)
xG takes into account shot location, puck movement, rebounds etc to assign a statistical probability of a goal being scored. If a Goalie has allowed fewer goals than the xGA he has faced than he is above a replacement level goalie (he saves more goals than would be expected).

Crosby and Malkin are not good comparables for this situation, they signed their contracts when the cap was much lower.

Holtby will not take a 1.1M AAV pay cut, especially not with the money being handed out to goalies, he's getting at least 7.5M