Wednesday afternoon, the Columbus Blue Jackets cleared up some roster uncertainty for the new season: they announced a new contract for backup goalie Curtis McElhinney. He’s re-signed for two more years (2015-16, and 16-17), with an $800K cap hit both seasons. The Blue Jackets have a post up about the signing, and Rob Mixer tweeted out the contract details.
The low cost is one of the bright points of the deal, helping to balance the big money owed to starter Sergei Bobrovsky. Together, the tandem will take up a $8.225M cap hit, about 11.5% of the maximum allowed next season. Be sure to visit War On Ice for a nice breakdown of the latest Columbus salary situation.
This news does come with some inconvenience: earlier in the day, the Score’s Justin Bourne had already reflected on the goalie market. Check out his prescient tweet.
https://twitter.com/jtbourne/status/613750065027395584
The point is not how the Blue Jackets missed those particular guys. Rather, it’s a chance to take a look at the ever-flooded goalie market. Of the nine goalies Bourne listed, six are above league average in even strength save percentage (.922+) over the past two seasons. All but Lehner are are above McElhinney’s mark (.914). (Data from War on Ice).
These nine picks may qualify as bigger-name goalies, so a better look at “backups” might be more convincing. Again using War On Ice, I’ve picked goalies with at least 500 minutes played over the past two seasons (regular season only). Then I eliminated goalies with 80+ games played. This gives us a list of 52 semi-regular backups over the past two years.
Sorting by even strength save percentage, McElhinney finishes 37th of those 52 goalies (he’s 43rd out of 52 if we sort by adjusted save percentage). Like most things, this isn’t a perfect method. You can get fussy about Brian Elliott showing up, maybe Jhonas Enroth should be off. You can argue about the use of either form of SV%. It’s still a below-median showing for McElhinney compared to his peers, in an area that goalies can control. The data are there, the finding isn’t rosy.
Finally, there’s goalie acquisition price. There are a lot of near-average to above-average goalies in NHL systems now. This creates a buyer’s market, no matter how a team picks up their netminder. In trades last year, Neuvirth and Enroth were both pried away for another goalie and a 3rd round pick. In free agency, Devan Dubnyk ($800K cap hit), and Thomas Greiss ($1M cap hit) both came in cheap and performed well. Improving the #2 man on the force needn’t come at a premium.
By keeping McElhinney, the Blue Jackets stick with the known quantity. Unfortunately, that means they’ve also forfeited a chance at an upgrade. Considering the list of talent backup-level talent ahead of McElhinney and the buyer’s market to come in free agency, this contract projects as a slight misstep in the leadup to 2015-16. Thankfully, such a low cap hit affords flexibility if a rising goalie comes calling (perhaps Anton Forsberg?), making any AHL assignments more palatable for the NHL team.
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