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Aaron Judge had an Opening Day negotiating deadline in 2022 when he was coming up on the final year of his contract before free-agent eligibility, and that seems to have worked out just fine for No. 99 — perhaps the first time ever in a hockey column that numeral does not refer to Wayne Gretzky — and the Yankees.
And so there is no need to overreact to the news that Igor Shesterkin has set a similar deadline as the Rangers franchise goaltender approaches the final year of his contract ahead of unrestricted free agency.
This may represent an attempt by Shesterkin’s party to create additional leverage, but in reality this changes nothing. The goaltender has hand. Everyone knows it. That’s not a reference to his glove hand, either.
Shesterkin is going to become the highest-paid goaltender in NHL history. There is no doubt he will surpass the $10.5 million per that Carey Price earned with Montreal off the eight-year contract that kicked in with the 2018-19 season when the cap was set at $79.5M. So in Year 1, Price ate 13.21 percent of the cap.
The Post’s Mollie Walker’s report on June 2 that the goaltender would seek $12M per has been verified by several sources, and I would be shocked if GM Chris Drury has yet not talked about an offer of between $10.5M and $11M per if numbers have been exchanged. The term presumably would be seven or eight years.
But it’s my information, also previously reported, that Shesterkin is also aiming to become the highest paid player on the Rangers and in franchise history. That would mean exceeding Artemi Panarin’s annual $11,642,857 on the wildly mutually beneficial contract that has two years to go.
Twelve is a nice round number.
Twelve would represent 13.04 percent of next season’s projected $92M cap.
I can tell you right now that I never for a second have believed in the theory that Henrik Lundqvist’s annual $8.5M — which equaled 12.32 percent of the cap in 2014-15 — was a significant factor in the Blueshirts’ failure to win the Cup throughout the King’s reign
Indeed, I’d say signing Dan Boyle as a free agent instead of retaining Anton Stralman after the club had gone to the 2014 Cup final was more of a factor. Maybe that’s me.
I also don’t quite get the kind of new fixation on how much of the percentage of the cap is devoted to goaltenders. A couple of weeks ago, Leon Draisaitl signed an eight-year extension at a $14M annual cap charge. That will equate to 15.91 percent of next year’s apple. Yet I don’t recall hearing alarm bells go off in Edmonton. And Draisaitl is the Oilers’ second-best player.
Panarin, among the greatest big-money free-agent signings in the history of New York pro sports, ate up 13.94 percent of the cap last year and 14.29 the first year of the deal in 2019-20. I don’t recall a soul mentioning it.
That apparently applies only for goalies.
The argument can be advanced that Stanley Cup champions don’t necessarily require goaltenders who are at the top of the food chain. It is not entirely specious. I’ve given it some air after the Avalanche won with Darcy Kuemper in 2022 and Vegas took the Cup in 2023 with Adin Hill in nets.
At the same time, though, two of the last five Cup winners have had either the NHL’s most expensive or second-most expensive active goaltender with the 2024 Panthers winning it with Sergei Bobrovsky ($10M per) and the 2021 Lightning taking their second straight with Andrei Vasilevskiy ($9.5 M) in nets.
Bobrovsky accounted for 12.27 percent of the cap when the contract began in 2019-20 and 11.97 percent last season. That, however, did not seem to stop the Puddy Tats from building a championship roster.
A powerhouse team might be able to win the Cup without an established elite goaltender, but when you peruse the Rangers roster, do you see a powerhouse? I kind of don’t. I kind of see a franchise that has been historically reliant on goaltending. Indeed, of the 11 players whose numbers have been retired by the franchise, three are goaltenders — No. 1, Eddie Giacomin; No. 35, Mike Richter; No. 30, The King.
Drury and the Rangers are going to be up against it this summer. Alexis Lafreniere will need a new contract and so will K’Andre Miller. Those two plus Shesterkin will account for a combined $11.864M cap charge this season. That number will more than double in 2025-26. It could reach $26M. That is the math with which the hierarchy is contending.
Shesterkin is the Rangers’ most important player and he has been their best player over each of the last three playoffs. No one but no one doubts his pedigree. But he was not the team’s best player during the regular season in either of the last two seasons that followed his Vezina 2021-22. He has had subpar first halves and has been a little too erratic. He should have a better regular season.
I don’t know if $12M per is too much for the most important player on the Rangers given cap implications. But I do know that it is not an unreasonable request.
And I also believe that if Shesterkin truly does want to stay in New York, the sides will make it work and they’ll be partying like it’s ’99. Don’t fret about an Opening Day deadline.
