Do not Blame Igor Shesterkin For Wanting Extra Than $88 Million From the Rangers

Igor Shesterkin is without doubt one of the finest goaltenders within the NHL, amid what could possibly be among the finest goaltending careers of all time.

As he formally entered his contract 12 months with a 6-0 shutout Wednesday, yet another factor was abundantly clear: Quickly, he’ll turn into the highest-paid goaltender in NHL historical past.

The Rangers reportedly attempted to provide him that title with an eight-year, $88 million supply earlier than the season kicked off. The deal would have surpassed the eight-year, $84 million deal that former Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Worth signed in 2017. Shesterkin determined to guess on himself even more durable, turning the deal down and posting the aforementioned opening night time shutout.

He is the newest of a number of latest NHL goalies preventing for higher salaries because the wage cap continues to rise. On condition that Shesterkin is an important participant on the Rangers most nights, why would we blame him for wanting a contract that displays that by way of cap proportion?

The understanding that star gamers and their brokers are in search of raises that mirror a much bigger proportion of the workforce’s cap now that the wage cap is rising in actual time is paramount, right here. Comparables from even just a few years in the past are going to be outdated because the league retains rising financially, and the previous arguments in opposition to paying goalies “an excessive amount of” are equally outdated as the game’s analytics tradition grows.

Leon Draisaitl’s extension kicks in at $14 million per year subsequent season, the richest AAV in league historical past till (not less than) his teammate Connor McDavid’s contract is up. Draisaitl and McDavid each eat in between 15-16 % of the Oilers’ cap apiece. We preserve seeing new contract data due to the rising wage cap, and due to the shift to serious about it as cap proportion per star participant.

Plainly this mentality partly earned Jeremy Swayman his eight-year extension carrying an $8.25 million common annual worth. It was a hard-fought, public, messy negotiation course of, nevertheless it was an announcement as we’re wading by new positional markets within the new cap period.

Swayman needed to battle to get $3 million fewer per 12 months than Bruins’ star winger David Pastrňáok, and now it appears to be like like Shesterkin’s camp is in search of an identical proportion of the Rangers’ cap to their star winger, Artemi Panarin, who rakes in $11.6 million per 12 months.

This brings us to the mentality some groups harbor round paying goalies that this crop of stars is attempting to alter. One argument has been “Since they do not play each sport they should not be paid as such.”

This has all the time been foolish, contemplating no skater performs 60 minutes of a sport, which goalies do. It is even sillier when you think about no two conditions are alike — like skaters, some goalies are higher than others, after which some tandems impression utilization.

Shesterkin has performed not less than 50 video games per season for the previous three seasons, owns a profession regular-season .921 save proportion, and has been an especially useful a part of the Rangers’ perennial success as they began their successful period forward of schedule when he arrived and so they have not appeared again.

And, howdy, are we forgetting he performs each must-win playoff sport (if not each playoff sport)? He owns a profession .928 save proportion within the playoffs and sits at 15.62 playoff objectives saved above anticipated in response to Evolving Hockey. He has gained playoff video games for this workforce, bails them out of playoff losses, and in some way elevates his sport when it issues probably the most.

We do not know precisely what Shesterkin’s ask is, and he is stated he needs to deal with hockey till the low season, however his contract will set the tone for the goalie market within the period of the rising cap. He has a duty to his goalie friends to re-set their cap proportion and get the piece of the pie they’ve earned, and it appears to be like like he is honoring that duty.