Blockbuster goalie deals don’t happen often in the NHL. That statement is especially true during the salary cap era, yet even before then, you’d sometimes need Patrick Roy to whisper nasty things in someone’s ear to set an earth-shaking ‘tender trade in motion.
NHL GMs typically aren’t as bold as their peers in the NBA and NFL, but there’s a real chance that circumstances and some genuine stars available (Connor Hellebuyck, maybe Juuse Saros) could make 2023 the summer of big goalie moves.
Blockbuster goalie trades aren’t easy, but a big swing could turn into a grand slam
Every now and then, an NHL team creates a new blueprint, yet the industry is brimming with creatures of habit. Some might be intimidated by a lack of an obvious template for a big trade involving netminders.
Others will learn the wrong lessons from Adin Hill winning a Stanley Cup, and argue they shouldn’t invest much in goalies at all.
No doubt, Hill’s brilliant run was unexpected, yet he played like an elite playoff goalie with a sparkling .932 save percentage. Peruse this array of great recent playoff runs and you’ll likely agree that, from a performance standpoint, Hill was not an outlier. If anything, the lesson should be that it’s unusual to win it all despite goalie performance; for every Darcy Kuemper (.902 save percentage in Colorado’s title run), there are multiple seasons by the likes of Andrei Vasilevskiy and Hill.
Goaltending being a volatile position doesn’t make it any less valuable.
Hellebuyck and Saros: cornerstone goalies rarely become available
Whether it’s carrying their teams on their backs as workhorses or putting up elite numbers, Connor Hellebuyck and Juuse Saros are on a very short list of genuine franchise goalies in the NHL right now.
Arguably, both Hellebuyck and Saros have deserved more mentions in MVP conversations, especially if you believe that goalies don’t win the Hart Trophy often enough.
Evolving Hockey attempted to summarize a player’s impacts in single stats, including SPAR (Standings Points Above Replacement). During the past three seasons, only three skater seasons ranked above 10 SPAR: Auston Matthews (10.6) and Johnny Gaudreau (10.5) in 2021-22, and Connor McDavid (10.2) in 2022-23. This past season, Saros (16.8 SPAR) nearly matched a Herculean 2021-22 effort from Igor Shesterkin, while also managing 10.7 and 8 SPAR seasons. Connor Hellebuyck’s been a machine for at least six seasons, ranging from 9 to 12.5 SPAR since 2020-21.
Fascinatingly, while these two goalies broadly produced similarly elite work for their teams, they’re about as different as you can get from a nuts-and-bolts perspective. If your team’s process is more nuanced than “goalie with good numbers will automatically make my team’s save percentage go up” then there are factors to consider when deciding which of these two studs to pursue.
Hellebuyck risks and rewards
The main glaring difference between the two situations is Hellebuyck reportedly told the team he won’t re-sign after the 2023-24 season while essentially asking the Jets to move him. Maybe GM Kevin Cheveldayoff can play all the right notes and create an ideal bidding war anyway, but theoretically, he’ll likely be bargaining from a position of weakness.
Hellebuyck’s contract is a double-edged sword. He’s dirt-cheap at $6.17 million in 2023-24, but his deal expires at season’s end, and he’ll be seeking something in the Vasilevskiy neighborhood of $9.5 million per year.
There’s a dark timeline where Hellebuyck walks a similar path to a big goalie who broke down as he aged at a high price (Carey Price) or signed late and whose contract looks like an albatross when he’s not blowing people’s minds in the playoffs (Sergei Bobrovsky). Easily leading regular season goalies in saves and games played makes his elite numbers even more impressive, but that wear-and-tear increases his risk factors for those looking at a Hellebuyck trade as a long-term investment.
There’s also an argument that Hellebuyck may need the right structure in front of him: think the Kings more than a Sabres team that allowed a lot of breakaways and cross-seam passes. (Kevin Woodley’s breakdown around the 52-minute mark of this Jeff Marek interview captures much of that argument.)
Still, the lure of Hellebuyck is real. This is especially true if the free-agent market ends up pretty dry for goalies as expected. What if you can trade for Hellebuyck for just a bit more than the first-rounder Cory Schneider and Kuemper cost in previous goalie trades? You may only pay a bit more for Hellebuyck than you would in a trade deadline “rental” deal, yet you’d get an offseason to integrate him and many more games to get your pick-and-prospect’s worth — not to mention first dibs on trying to re-sign him long term.
And, who knows, maybe Hellebuyck ages like fine wine? Such a gambit seems especially enticing for a GM who’s worried about keeping their job more than even the medium-term future. That GM may reasonably believe Hellebuyck can bail them out like he has many hapless Winnipeg Jets defensemen.
The small and big on Saros
By the NHL’s listings, Hellebuyck isn’t at the very top (Adin Hill/Ben Bishop) range of goalies, yet he’s not far off at 6-foot-4. Saros, meanwhile, is listed at 5-foot-11. Thanks to injuries and a collapsing Predators team (that he dragged to playoff-bubble relevancy), Saros’ playoff resume is short.
Fair or not, old-school types may fixate on Saros’ Osgoodian size. An argument would go: “During the regular season, he can excel. But what if an opponent can start to pick corners against him in a series and take away his eyes?”
There’s also the chance the Predators decide not to trade Saros, but let’s operate as if they will. (For what it’s worth: they should, although they could wait for the best offer while the Jets are under more immediate pressure.)
Saros is a little younger at 28, and his cap hit is even sweeter at just $5 million with two more seasons of control. If he’s close to the goalie he’s been, that AAV almost feels like cheating. Some GMs might get indigestion thinking about what the next deal might look like (and if the explosive Saros would lose too many steps at age 30-plus), but depending upon your taste and what the trade market looks like, he might be an even better goalie to target than Hellebuyck.
Salary cap makes Bruins’ situation blurry; is Ullmark available?
This post idea sprouted up because of an unusual situation where multiple rebuilding teams boasted goalies who made almost too much sense to trade. Yet, the team that broke NHL records for points and wins may very well need to trade one of Linus Ullmark (29 years old, likely Vezina winner) or Jeremy Swayman (24-year-old RFA with arbitration rights).
Reporters have understandably found it hard to ignore Ullmark as a sell-high candidate whose $5-million price tag is a squeeze for Boston, but possibly interesting for someone else. Ullmark is older than Saros (Ullmark turns 30 in July), but carries the same cap hit for the next two seasons as the Predators netminder.
Ultimately, Ullmark presents a fascinating Rorschach test for goalie coaches and NHL executives. His career numbers before this season were solid, but nowhere near in line with the .938 save percentage and model-breaking 48.5 goals saved above average he posted last season. That said, Ullmark only played 49 games (a career-high) and many wondered if he ran out of gas in the playoffs. He presents a chicken-and-egg argument: how much did the Bruins’ system prop him up vs. how much did Ullmark influence Boston’s all-time regular season? This Hockey Viz chart argues that Ullmark did his part, and then some.
Personally, I’d place Ullmark behind Saros and Hellebuyck in value as those other two goalies present larger bodies of elite work, and managed to do so in less hospitable environments. Circumstances such as asking price and availability could make Ullmark well worth a look, though.
(Swayman is intriguing too, by the way, it’s just tougher to imagine him getting traded barring something elaborate.)
Hart breaks from most of these other examples in being a bet on potential rather than pedigree. A team could extend Hart (turning 25 in August, would be an RFA after 2023-24) and possibly save serious cash before he breaks through.
However, there’s the risk that you hype Hart up but he remains what he was (a goalie with middling results, whether they’re his fault or not).
Speaking of the challenges of assessing sometimes-brilliant goalies wallowing on bad teams, we have John Gibson. When Gibson — who led many best-in-the-world conversations a few years ago — signed a contract extension in 2018, a $6.4-million cap hit looked like a potential bargain. Now, the Ducks need to shake free of the 29-year-old, whose deal runs through 2026-27 (four more seasons).
Some might throw Gibson into the problem-contract pile with the likes of Jack Campbell and Matt Murray, but with salary retention, there still could be a squad out there that believes in Gibson, who isn’t all that far away from all-world form.
For all we know, a summer of NHL goalie trades could heat up around the 2023 NHL Draft. It’s also possible that teams might gamble in early July, when someone like Hellebuyck can sign a contract extension.
However it shakes out, GMs rarely get a chance to radically improve their team’s chances at likely reasonable prices. If little to nothing happens, then it’s a failure both for the rebuilding teams who should trade someone like Saros and the contenders who need help in net.
