Included in their list of potential candidates for this year is Philipp Grubauer. Do I think Seattle will buy him out? Not a chance. But they offer an interesting rationale for buying him out, presented for discussion.
by First-Radish727
@Seattle Kraken
5 Comments
lol that anyone thinks we’re buying out Gru. Drance is better than this. Also lol that they think Joey stole the starter job. Joey had a crazy good streak when Gru was out and then returned back to earth. I wouldn’t want Joey as our dedicated starter. You can tell they don’t actually watch the team. Joey also had quite a few games where he was damn near unplayable at the end of the season
There is a 0% chance they buyout Grubauer this year.
That contract has been horrible for us. Yikes. Unless 23 playoff Grubie reappears in which case I’ll happily eat crow.
Seems like a bad idea, especially when we’re getting a new coach. I’d give him a chance in the new system, especially because he has had streaks of being really good. It seems like the back half of each of the last two seasons have been excellent, and the first half of each it seems like he was potentially nursing an injury.
Gru and Joey splitting the net this year seems best. One of them will likely grab the starter spot as the season goes.
I feel like this topic comes up every offseason 😂 Not directed at you OP, you’re just the messenger, but it feels like a hot take for the sake of it. I just don’t think Gru is bad enough to want to get rid of him at absolutely any cost. I don’t consider myself an expert on cap management and I’m not super familiar with the rationale for buying out a contract but it seems like something you would do as a last resort having totally lost faith in someone as well as knowing no one will take the contract. For example, San Jose bought out Martin Jones from a Gru-like contract, but it was after he totally fell apart and wasn’t even putting up .900 and there were still like 4 years left on his contract. But Gru has been fine.
Here are my thoughts on Gru. Is he the elite goalie we thought we were signing? Probably not. Is he overpaid? Yes. Is he past his prime? Probably. Is his contract so egregiously out of the ordinary for a veteran goaltender in the NHL who wanted stability at the same age everyone else wants? Absolutely not. There are other goalies who were signed to similar veteran contracts at Gru’s age or older (e.g. Darcy Kuemper) after a big event that increased their value (Kuemper winning the Stanley Cup, Gru being a Vezina finalist). We could go back to the beginning of time and argue that we maybe didn’t need to sign him, but I understand why we did, and it’s a moot point now. Yes we signed him for past performance, but seriously, there are other goalies who were signed to similar contracts who truly did not work out (Jack Campbell, Cal Petersen) and Gru just isn’t that way. He can hang at the NHL level, and he’s been fine in the last year and a half. The only real beef at this point is “he’s not worth this much money” but I just don’t think there’s any guarantee we could find someone who would be a significant enough upgrade given that the savings will be far less than what’s outlined above. We’d still need to pay a replacement goalie in that scenario and while I can think of one who would take a team-friendly deal, this organization does not and has not valued him so there is a 0% chance of it happening, and even if it did, there is no guarantee he would outplay Gru this season anyhow. We also to my knowledge are not cash-strapped enough to be freaking out over every little dollar that we’re paying Gru. Seems like way less work to just keep him 😂 especially since Joey is still new and still has a lot to learn and Gru has valuable experience and is also a lot calmer. Replacing all of that would require giving up assets and… why 😂 anyway that’s my take on it