Guentzel extended - 5 years $30m

[Pabst]

The Penguins have re-signed forward Jake Guentzel to a five-year, $30 million contract extension. The deal begins with the 2019.20 season.

https://twitter.com/penguins/status/1078406469953961984

This seems like a bit of a premium, but if he keeps improving the way he has, then it will be a great contract...maybe as soon as next year. For some context, it's roughly the same price as Joe Pavelski, Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle, and Gabriel Landeskog (granted, Jake is younger than all of those guys).

[Pabst]

So as not to cram this in the game thread:

Guentzal extended 5 years/$30M

I thought they were up against cap hell next year?

The Cap is projected to grow to somewhere between $82 and $85m. With Jake's extension, that gives them ~$10m to work with. Here's what they'll need:

FORWARDS: 3rd and 4th line Centers, plus two wingers to fill out the roster.
Sheahan and Grant are both UFA. I can't see them bringing back Brassard or Cullen.
ZAR is a RFA.
JS Dea and Teddy Bluegers are RFA on minor league contracts who could be brought up and won't cost too much

DEFENSE: 5 of the current top 6 are signed.
Riikola and Pettersson are both RFA who can be resigned for relatively cheap
Ruh is a UFA (probably won't get an offer)


I'd assume DeSmith has priced himself out of Pittsburgh and Jarry becomes the full time backup.

[Donnie Brasco]

So as not to cram this in the game thread:

Guentzal extended 5 years/$30M

I thought they were up against cap hell next year?

The Cap is projected to grow to somewhere between $82 and $85m. With Jake's extension, that gives them ~$10m to work with. Here's what they'll need:

FORWARDS: 3rd and 4th line Centers, plus two wingers to fill out the roster.
Sheahan and Grant are both UFA. I can't see them bringing back Brassard or Cullen.
ZAR is a RFA.
JS Dea and Teddy Bluegers are RFA on minor league contracts who could be brought up and won't cost too much

DEFENSE: 5 of the current top 6 are signed.
Riikola and Pettersson are both RFA who can be resigned for relatively cheap
Ruh is a UFA (probably won't get an offer)


I'd assume DeSmith has priced himself out of Pittsburgh and Jarry becomes the full time backup.

Hmmm....I honestly haven't thought about the future of the goaltending situation. That could very well play out

[Hacksaw Jim Duggan]

League will view DeSmith as a backup. If Murray plays well and gets the majority of the games down the stretch, many will forget just how good DeSmith was to start the season. He'll get a pay raise, but it won't be significant. Jarry will likely be traded if I had to guess. DeSmith has proven for two seasons he can be a reliable backup (.924 save % in nearly half a seasons worth of games).

It's really a "nothing to see here" type situation. Most backups make less than two million a season. Some fringe starters hovered around that mark as well. Mrazek signed for $1.5 mill this offseason, and he's a whole hell of a lot more established than DeSmith. Darcy Kuemper is a pretty solid comparable as well.

Any salary will be taken from the Pens defense (Schultz, Olli, Johnson?, Oleksiak, etc.) if it were to happen in this offseason. This will help fill out the center positions.

The Penguins can find the extra 600k-1mill for DeSmith, and they probably should knowing how injury prone Murray has been.

[Pabst]

League will view DeSmith as a backup. If Murray plays well and gets the majority of the games down the stretch, many will forget just how good DeSmith was to start the season. He'll get a pay raise, but it won't be significant. Jarry will likely be traded if I had to guess. DeSmith has proven for two seasons he can be a reliable backup (.924 save % in nearly half a seasons worth of games).

It's really a "nothing to see here" type situation. Most backups make less than two million a season. Some fringe starters hovered around that mark as well. Mrazek signed for $1.5 mill this offseason, and he's a whole hell of a lot more established than DeSmith. Darcy Kuemper is a pretty solid comparable as well.

Any salary will be taken from the Pens defense (Schultz, Olli, Johnson?, Oleksiak, etc.) if it were to happen in this offseason. This will help fill out the center positions.

The Penguins can find the extra 600k-1mill for DeSmith, and they probably should knowing how injury prone Murray has been.

First off, neither Kuemper nor Mrazek are good comps: Kuemper was a RFA when he signed that contract, which won't apply to DeSmith. Mrazek was hot garbage last year (which was his contract year).

DeSmith's numbers are much more comparable to Antti Raanta, Philipp Grubauer, Scott Darling, and Carter Hutton - all of whom are making $2.75m or more (with varying degrees of success). Hell, even Mike Condon is making $2.4m/year.

Now, look at the teams that will need a goaltender next year:
Detroit needs to shed salary, so they won't resign Howard.
Calgary will need someone to come in to compete with Rittich.
Chicago, St Louis, and NJ have starters who've fallen off a cliff, so they'd likely be willing to pay a premium for a backup.
Bobs isn't worth what he's currently making in Columbus - they may let him walk
Carolina has jack squat in goal.
Ditto Philly

You get the idea....I honestly don't see DeSmith playing next year for less than $2.25m, which is probably more than the Pens want to pay.

[Hacksaw Jim Duggan]

That's entirely possible that a team views DeSmith as worth 2.5+, especially with a rising cap, but I think we'd have to make the leap that he'd be the starter or 50/50. Most of those guys you listed were signed or re-signed to be the starter or 50/50 starter for their new team.

Kuemper is actually a great comparable if using your criteria. He came off a season with a .932 save% as a backup and went to a team needing a goaltender. $1.85. He had experience and years of prior success as a backup.

Scott Darling is actually a good comparable as to why most teams DON'T sign a backup goalie to such a lucrative deal. Darling had 75 total games of experience before the Hurricanes gave him an asinine 4.15 a year cap hit. I think they placed him on waivers earlier this year. I'd say this is more a mental retardation outlier than something that actual occurs with much regularity.

Condon is another good example of the Darling effect, though his 2.4 per season is just about the level I said Smith would hover around. This was a baddd contract from a bad team.

On the other hand...
Raanta was considered a highly regarded prospect but was buried behind Lundqvist. He put up big numbers in 130+ games between Chicago, New York, and Arizona before the team signed him to a $4+ million cap hit for three years to be their starter. It hasn't quite worked out for them yet, but the point being he had much, much more of a track record and league-wide interest than DeSmith.

Grubauer was another player in a similar situation as Raanta. He was consistently great through 4 of 6 seasons (only played a few games in two seasons) as a backup for the Capitals but was mostly buried behind Holtby. 101 games worth of context and seven total seasons. Sakic signed him because he wanted to lessen the burden on Varlamov and have more of a 1a/1b situation.

Hutton had 5+ seasons and 100+ games under his belt before signing that contract.

With the exception of Darling, the guys above had a lot more experience and years in the league than DeSmith will before signing the contracts they did. In the case of Grubauer and Raanta, both players were pretty well coveted by other teams for years but behind an established starter.

For the examples you listed, there are many of a team retaining the services of their own goalie in comparable situations for strictly back-up purposes.

Sharks Aaron Dell (1.9)
Preds Juuse Saros (1.5)
Devils Kinkaid (1.25)

Most free agent backups make less than 2 million. Those that peak around 2.5 maximum are tied to another goaltender that makes less than what an elite goalie would make (think situations in EDM and DAL).

So yes, I'd probably put DeSmith on a Mrazek level of interest (1.5) as a comparable if he were to hit the open market.

For the record...
Columbus isn't going to not re-sign Vezina-winning Bobrobsky to put in Casey DeSmith with Korpisalo, especially when they're a consistent playoff team.
NJ isn't likely to find a trade partner for $6 million Cory Schneider for the next three seasons. Even so, they're likely to keep their Vezina-winning goalie. If they didn't, they'd rely on Kinkaid and their rookie Blackwood.
Philly has hot shot prospect Carter Hart. They'd likely re-sign one of Neuvirth or Elliott to pair with him. I'm guessing Neuvirth.
Calgary would probably want a more established goalie to play with Rittich. We'll see.
Chicago won't be able to get out of Crawfords contract unless they LTIR next year for some reason. They'll likely re-sign Cam Ward.
Carolina does have nothing in net. I highly doubt they'll put the keys in Casey DeSmith's hands to be a starter.

If I had to guess, Grubauer gets shipped to one of the teams on that list.

[Pabst]

Kuemper is actually a great comparable if using your criteria. He came off a season with a .932 save% as a backup and went to a team needing a goaltender. $1.85. He had experience and years of prior success as a backup.

Kuemper had a .932% in LA - he was traded to Arizona mid season where his save % plummeted to .899. Career-wise, DeSmith has much better numbers (albeit in fewer games).

And I was just spitballing with the other players & teams - who knows how it will play out.

[Hacksaw Jim Duggan]

Kuemper is actually a great comparable if using your criteria. He came off a season with a .932 save% as a backup and went to a team needing a goaltender. $1.85. He had experience and years of prior success as a backup.

Kuemper had a .932% in LA - he was traded to Arizona mid season where his save % plummeted to .899. Career-wise, DeSmith has much better numbers (albeit in fewer games).

And I was just spitballing with the other players & teams - who knows how it will play out.

I don't get your point.

DeSmith is a backup goaltender. So far, he's proven that he can play as a starter in a limited window. He has started 31 career games. Even if we expound that out and say DeSmith will end with say a .918 save percentage and maybe 45 games started for the Penguins, a very comparable contract would be either what Mrazek got coming off a bad year (1/1.5) or what Kuemper got after being traded (3/1.8). Oh, and I'm glad we have now established that Kuemper was not an RFA at the time of his contract. These players represent guys who have proven to be solid backups that can sometimes play above their level of play and start a string of games. To even say DeSmith is to their level at this point would be actually degrading the longevity of success those goaltenders have had.

I even went as far as to provide Kuemper as an example, as he had similar numbers pre-extension to what DeSmith has now, and he still only got 1.8. Kuemper signed his contract extension immediately after being traded to Arizona (when he had that high save%), so what he did after that really doesn't make a damn difference.

You then went to put DeSmith on the level of two coveted backup goaltenders at their times in Raanta and Grubauer. Not only that, they were/are goalies who are being paid as starters. Has Fleuryitis now turned into DeSmith Derangement now? The dude has started 31 games! We're already suggesting teams dump their Vezina goalies and look at DeSmith.

So, yes, a guy with his limited track record is likely to only demand 1.5 to 2 million as a backup at most. Might some dumb team go overboard? Sure, it's happened less than a handful of times with teams like Buffalo, Carolina, and Ottawa. The key is that it's happened less than a handful of times. It's more likely that DeSmith follows the contracts guys like Dell got from San Jose, Domingue got from Tampa Bay, or any countless other goalies throughout the last half decade to decade that have hovered around that mark. Or, hell, even teams like the Penguins did in the past with similar but a lot more established backups like Greiss and Johnson. Or maybe even guys like Ty Conklin, who was absolutely incredible for the Penguins the year Fleury got hurt. He signed with the Red Wings the following season to be a backup for 1 yr/1 million.

Would I offer DeSmith closer to 2.5, realizing Murray has been prone to injury? Maybe. Probably not. At that point I'd probably see what was going on with Jarry. It's a pretty volatile position, and I wouldn't want to pull a Philly or Chicago and pay a guy like Cam Ward 3+, even though he is a legitimate starter.

That is, unless we're all convinced DeSmith's .924 save % will continue for the rest of his career. That would put him #1 all-time or something. I don't know seems pretty sketchy.

[Pabst]

I don't get your point.

My point is DeSmith will command more money than Mrazek and Kemper. I'm guessing in the $2.25m range. I think that's too expensive for the Pens, given Jarry's ability and their needs on the 3rd and 4th lines

[Pabst]

I even went as far as to provide Kuemper as an example, as he had similar numbers pre-extension to what DeSmith has now, and he still only got 1.8. Kuemper signed his contract extension immediately after being traded to Arizona (when he had that high save%), so what he did after that really doesn't make a damn difference.

Kuemper's career numbers prior to signing that extension: .913 save %, 2.52 GAA
DeSmith's NHL numbers: .924 save %, 2.41 GAA

That's not close. And that's with his incredible 10 game run in LA.

Also, since you brought up Aaron Dell - He signed his $1.9m/year contract extension with similar numbers to DeSmith (starts and stats) last year when the cap was $75m. Assuming contracts increase by ~10% (keeping pace with the rising Cap), then a comparable value is $2.1m - very close to where I pegged DeSmith.

[Hacksaw Jim Duggan]

I even went as far as to provide Kuemper as an example, as he had similar numbers pre-extension to what DeSmith has now, and he still only got 1.8. Kuemper signed his contract extension immediately after being traded to Arizona (when he had that high save%), so what he did after that really doesn't make a damn difference.

Kuemper's career numbers prior to signing that extension: .913 save %, 2.52 GAA
DeSmith's NHL numbers: .924 save %, 2.41 GAA

That's not close. And that's with his incredible 10 game run in LA.

Also, since you brought up Aaron Dell - He signed his $1.9m/year contract extension with similar numbers to DeSmith (starts and stats) last year when the cap was $75m. Assuming contracts increase by ~10% (keeping pace with the rising Cap), then a comparable value is $2.1m - very close to where I pegged DeSmith.

So we're in agreement that a backup goaltender is going to make around $2 million and not the 4+ that Darling and Raanta got to be a starter and the 3+ Grubauer got to likely be traded and worked in as a starter.

[Pabst]

So we're in agreement that a backup goaltender is going to make around $2 million and not the 4+ that Darling and Raanta got to be a starter and the 3+ Grubauer got to likely be traded and worked in as a starter.

Considering I've said $2.25m twice now, yes.

[SteelPro]

So we're in agreement that a backup goaltender is going to make around $2 million and not the 4+ that Darling and Raanta got to be a starter and the 3+ Grubauer got to likely be traded and worked in as a starter.

Considering I've said $2.25m twice now, yes.

That doesn’t seem all that expensive for a high quality backup. If the starter wasn’t brittle and you could bank on him playing 60+ games, then yeah that would be an overpay. Sure, they’ll have needs on the 3rd and 4th lines. But the Pens are generally comfortable waiting until the trade deadline to fill out those needs.

[Donnie Brasco]

So we're in agreement that a backup goaltender is going to make around $2 million and not the 4+ that Darling and Raanta got to be a starter and the 3+ Grubauer got to likely be traded and worked in as a starter.

Considering I've said $2.25m twice now, yes.

That doesn’t seem all that expensive for a high quality backup. If the starter wasn’t brittle and you could bank on him playing 60+ games, then yeah that would be an overpay. Sure, they’ll have needs on the 3rd and 4th lines. But the Pens are generally comfortable waiting until the trade deadline to fill out those needs.

I think the Pens ownership got PTSD over the Niemi thing and are probably not interested in skimping out on the backup going forward.

[Hacksaw Jim Duggan]

3/ 1.25

Ya'll need to REALLY stop disagreeing with the Super Genius on this board.

[Pabst]

Congrats. I'm amazed DeSmith took that. Also, it's no reason for you to act like a raging cunt.