Red Wings no longer doing goaltending on the cheap

Well, looks like Jimmy Howard's numbers finally came up. $5.3 million a year for the next six years. That is a serious commitment. The type of commitment Detroit has not really made to goalies in the past. Even when they were chasing down the top paid goalies in the league, those deals were at least for shorter term.

The advanced stats blogs have praised Detroit as being ahead of the curve in this regard. Most goalies fluctuate in performance from year-to-year. So unless you’re getting one of the few consistent performers (who usually command top dollar), you want to be careful.

For the past three years, Detroit has gotten a bargain with Howard. He’s played an average of 61 games and far out-performed his contract. Those days are over.

Starting next year at $5.3 million per year, Howard will have the 10^th highest salary among goalies and the 11^th highest cap hit.  (Thank you Cap Geek) Here is where Howard stacks up with the other top 20 cap hits.

Name	Age	Team	Expiry	Salary	Cap Hit
Rinne, Pekka »	30	NAS	2019	$7,000,000	$7,000,000
Lundqvist, Henrik »	31	NYR	2014	$5,125,000	$6,875,000
Price, Carey »	25	MTL	2018	$5,750,000	$6,500,000
Ward, Cam »	29	CAR	2016	$6,600,000	$6,300,000
Miller, Ryan »	32	BUF	2014	$6,250,000	$6,250,000
Lehtonen, Kari »	29	DAL	2018	$6,250,000	$5,900,000
Kiprusoff, Miikka »	36	CGY	2014	$1,500,000	$5,833,333
Quick, Jonathan »	27	LAK	2023	$7,000,000	$5,800,000
Bryzgalov, Ilya »	32	PHI	2020	$8,000,000	$5,666,667
Luongo, Roberto »	34	VAN	2022	$6,714,000	$5,333,333
Howard, Jimmy »	29	DET	2019	$5,300,000	$5,300,000
Fleury, M. »	28	PIT	2015	$5,750,000	$5,000,000
Hiller, Jonas »	31	ANA	2014	$4,500,000	$4,500,000
Brodeur, Martin »	40	NJD	2014	$5,000,000	$4,500,000
DiPietro, Rick »	31	NYI	2021	$4,500,000	$4,500,000
Schneider, Cory »	27	VAN	2015	$4,000,000	$4,000,000
Pavelec, Ondrej »	25	WIN	2017	$3,500,000	$3,900,000
Niemi, Antti »	29	SJS	2015	$4,000,000	$3,800,000
Halak, Jaroslav »	27	STL	2014	$4,500,000	$3,750,000
Dubnyk, Devan »	26	EDM	2014	$3,750,000	$3,500,000
Anderson, Craig »	31	OTT	2015	$3,500,000	$3,187,500

Looking at the list, it seems Howard is now slotted in about the right place. Of the five guys right above him, I’d say only Quick and Luongo are better. Lehtonen cannot stay healthy, Kiprusoff is retiring and Bryzgalov is laughably overpaid. Similarly, Howard does not look out of place with the five guys below him.

Howard is not often going to steal a game, but usually, he’s not going to lose you the game either. When he’s on, he can be a top 5-10 goalie, but usually he’s going to slot in around the 10-15 spot statistically.

I’d say Howard is being fairly paid now. Had he hit the open market as a free agent, maybe he could have made more (though I find that a bit hard to believe). On the flip side, I would have liked this contract a lot more if it were only for three-four years. Six years is a long time for a player who is about to enter his 30s.

I wonder what this will mean for Detroit’s prospect Petr Mrazek. He has been fantastic in Grand Rapids as a 21-year-old rookie. If he duplicates that performance next year, it will be hard to leave him in the minors much longer.

And most of all, I wonder what this contract will mean for Detroit’s other free agents (mostly Filppula and Brunner). With the salary cap dropping $6 million and Howard getting a $3 million raise, that leaves just more than $12.5 million in cap space for nine players whose contracts are expiring this year.

Only time will tell if this contract works out to be a deal Ken Holland regrets.