No. We’ve witnessed the past 20 years the fact that an elite goalie on its own does not get you a cup. I want him to be re-signed badly, but not if it cripples us cap-wise.
Legitimate-Cupcake26
For the unitiated, why do we dislike Herman?
Mediocre-Stick6820
BR is such a shit site. Didn’t realize they still cover hockey.
MacPhisto__
Sure pay Shesterkin whatever he wants (probably 11.5 million a year) while also keeping your aging core that are overpaid and obviously cannot win a Cup.
flaamed
its a tough situation.
he’s obviously the best goalie, but does he deserve to be the highest paid with 0 cups?
homiej420
As they should
KGX075
Nope. We tried this before. Can’t lock up 10 – 14% of the cap in a goalie. If he wants to be the highest paid goalie in history, let someone else pay him.
iiKrOna
For the fans that are immediately saying no I’m genuinely curious to know what your next plan would be for the rangers if they let igor walk
groovystreet40
Look, I love Igor and I really hope we’re able to reach an extension with him that doesn’t hamper the team’s ability to build a true contender moving forward. But the second part of that sentence is key.
We are so spoiled to have only known elite goaltending for 30+ years at this point, but I’d be lying if I said I’m not at least curious what that $11-13M that Igor will likely get, could be used for elsewhere on the roster.
As we’ve seen in recent years, you don’t need an absolutely elite goaltender to win a cup, but you do at the very least need strong 5v5 play, above average center depth, and a very good defensive corps. I do genuinely wonder what this team could do with a middle of the pack goalie and a solid addition both up front and on the blue line.
DannysFavorite945
Didn’t work out last time. I love Igor but the data shows you don’t need the top elite goalie to win a cup. You need big tough players that walk the line with being dirty to impose your will and break your opponent. Pay him enough to be the top paid goalie, but do t break the bank.
Teknicsrx7
If you don’t want to pay Igor because you think if we put his money into an F or D that we’ll easily win a cup then please tell me why we’ve been more successful than Toronto?
I’d rather try to ride a top tier goalie to a cup, then watch our mid goalie get lit up in the first round every season.
Tommybrady20
In a vacuum yes, he deserves $12. HYPOTHETICALLY, yes you can win with Igor making $12 if you build around him perfectly.
But the problem is how narrow that needle is you need to build around him perfectly and nail all your draft picks that someone off the radar becomes a stud and is cheap talent.
In an Igor makes $12 world, your fancy 3C PP specialist Mika 8x $8.5 is completely devastating (as if it isn’t already)
We’re already throwing shit to the fan with this new (Blake wheeler/ Reilly smith) please save our top 6 on a budget plan because we’re already up against it.
It’s also worth mentioning you’re gonna eventually have to pay Laf $8M+ in 12 months.
The math starts to not add up when you’re keeping the same players while your vets (Mika/ Krieder/ Panarin/ Troch) are only getting closer to the end of their primes. Something has to give.
Moral of the story is, if you sign Igor for $12, you’re hoping the retool in 2026-2027 is quick because you’re gonna experience growing pains as the team is in purgatory as our expensive vets get less effective and we’re paying all our youth more than we were before. It ain’t great. The window is/ was 2022-2025.
TomGNYC
Pay that man his money.
Tommybrady20
Hey I’m an idiot but please explain to me like I’m 5 how I’m supposed to believe the team that couldn’t win with the best goalie in the world making $5M is all of a sudden gonna win when we’re paying him $12M
The window was now. I don’t want to see Igor complaining when we’re the post cups Penguins spewing mediocrity (ya know except we don’t have the cups to begin with)
gymedmfan13
Signing Bob didn’t hamstring the panthers
c0sm0nautt
10 mill seems fair.
EvKanes_MoneyPhone
If Swayman gets 10 million, Igor is getting at least 11
ep29
I just wanna point out that the cup-winning teams since the lockout pay their goalie an average of 8.7% of the cap (and this would be MUCH higher, closer to 9.5%, if not for literally just 2006 Cam Ward, 2012 Quick and 2023 Adin Hill), and that, no, letting Igor walk to pay a guy 5M because that’s a number we’re used to seeing instead of just paying Igor 11-12M even tho it’ll be a perfectly normal amount of cap to spend on a goalie in like 2 years anyway when he’s literally having an inner-circle HoF career is just a fucking braindead take and is proof positive you don’t get it.
11M next year would be 11.8% of the cap. Less than Bob’s % literally this past year and on par with what Giguere made in 2007, Flower made in 2009, Quick in 2014, and Vasy in 2021.
Don’t let the recency bias of Kuemper and Hill fool you. Well-compensated goalies win MUCH more than the cheapos do.
It’s not “no choice”. It’s “the objectively correct choice”. Fucks sake.
Compulsive_Bater
Another thread and again I’m floored at the amount of people saying let Igor walk.
I’m not saying I’m in love with the idea of paying him 12 million but when we have salaries like Mika, bread, troub, fox this is not a stretch. The only reason we’ve even had the success we’ve had the last few years is mostly due to Igor.
Pay him now and deal with it later. If we unfortunately miss this window and again have to do a partial rebuild then he can be easily moved for younger assets. Or you move someone else and he can be kept as an anchor for younger guys to play in front of and figure it out.
_Noah93
I can kind of understand the argument of past teams winning without paying their goalie a significant amount. Similar to rbs in the NFL. But I think that point isn’t too relevant. NHL teams pay their best players, in our situation Igor is our best player, and not too often is a goalie a teams best player. Given his age a 7-8 year contract is obviously concerning but that’s just the way it goes sometimes. Hopefully he’s killer in the first 5 years of that contract and it’s all worth it if he slows down the last 3. Who knows maybe he’s great till the very end.
notyetacadaver73
With the team that nyr has currently. With czar Igor. Will they win the cup ? At all
dsmithcc
Shesty has been one of if not the top goaltender in the league since he came into it, he has been dominant and put us in many many winning positions, him and Quick are the best duo in the league, we were a few ‘ref stolen’ games away from the finals, pay this man….wtf why is this even a discussion.
KorbanDallas90
Let him go. We can’t check all our boxes with a greedy player. Team will have to learn how to play with a lesser goalie.
Scavenger908
Next offseason in this subreddit is gonna be fun 😅
Sjdillon10
He’s the only high paid player who shows up in the playoffs. Panarin Trouba and Mika all sucked in the playoffs. AGAIN
rangers9458
NHL is a business. He will be signed as he can take the team past the first round. The team makes $$$$ each round of the playoffs.
TernoftheArctic
I mean yah. Any team has to pay their superstar. You don’t see Leon, Mathews. Crosby leaving or taking huge discounts.
obvioussponge06
Some of yall seem really nostalgic for the years between Richter and Hank lol
PaulSach
*This article was sponsored by Igor’s agent
NYM32
there’s virtually no correlation between goalie AAV and cup success. in recent history, teams have won cups with cheap goalies and expensive goalies, good goalies and bad goalies
you can pay Igor $11m *and* build a cup winner. you just have to know how to properly evaluate the talent in your organization, find undervalued talent on the market, and also hand out undervalued contracts. but Chris Drury and Ryan Martin have shown next to zero ability to actually do this. example, the Panthers gave Evan Rodrigues a $3m AAV last year, who obviously was a major piece of their cup win. Meanwhile, Drury/Martin gave Goodrow $3.6m to be a liability when he stepped on the ice, and he was so bad to the point that Drury waived him after the season. Drury/Martin just gave Lindgren a $4.5m cap hit, despite the fact that there were so many better defensemen who signed for league min this offseason with other teams
youdirtyhoe
No
jpelleg1
And they fuckin should.
I_Need__Scissors_61
Didn’t realize Igor’s agent wrote for BR
BurrShotLast
Oh no, our star goalie who single handedly carries our team for stretches of the season and is always capable of stealing games for us deserves to be paid accordingly.
septemous
I think the problem is I have no connection to Igor. He kind of bores me. Vs. Hank, Richter, etc who were kind of fun and cool.
WoodyHarrelsonFucks
Thank You Bleacher Report for my “No fuckin shit” moment of today.
Real_Call_Me_Ghost
This might be an unpopular take, well, almost certainly.
But I don’t think we need to have the best goaltender in the world. Edmonton made it to the final and almost won with stewart skinner.
Maybe he proves me wrong, but I’ve been a hater for a while on him.
I would much rather have a goalie in the 7-9 million dollar range than the 10-12 million range.
That might not be a big difference in money, but let’s say we have an extra 3 million that isn’t going into goal. That’s most of the way to an additional decent player.
So I guess what we need to do is look at the difference between a 7-9 million dollar goalie and Igor, who will probably be at 11m aav.
I look at swayman. He’s still really, really good. Contract negotiations might be kind of hard for boston right now, but he’s not going to get Igor money, and I mean, I don’t think he’s that much worse.
Who knows, maybe we can trade Igor at the deadline or sooner to Boston for Swayman and another player. Probably not getting a Pasternack or McAvoy, but they do have others that would slot in nicely in New York.
Also, Swayman is American, and we last won the cup with an American between the pipes.
khalaron
Pay Igor.
This should not even be a debate.
DrDrangleBrungis
Pay the man
Smorgas-board
Pay him. Not only is he NOT the problem but he elevates this team. The bigger contracts to forwards/defenseman that are aging will hold us back more.
cptngali86
So Bruins fan here this popped up on my feed. pay Sherstekin so long as you’re not neglecting other areas. Swayman is currently delusional and thinks he’s worth like 9 or 10M when he’s never even played more than 44 games. not only that the Bruins couldn’t even give him that contract without trading someone. unless it’s like McDavid you’re not going to meet stupid demands like that. as someone else pointed out here how many cups did Henrik bring? goalies are important but not important enough to handcuff a team into a bad contract. Just my 2 cents.
42 Comments
Fuck Adam herman
No. We’ve witnessed the past 20 years the fact that an elite goalie on its own does not get you a cup. I want him to be re-signed badly, but not if it cripples us cap-wise.
For the unitiated, why do we dislike Herman?
BR is such a shit site. Didn’t realize they still cover hockey.
Sure pay Shesterkin whatever he wants (probably 11.5 million a year) while also keeping your aging core that are overpaid and obviously cannot win a Cup.
its a tough situation.
he’s obviously the best goalie, but does he deserve to be the highest paid with 0 cups?
As they should
Nope. We tried this before. Can’t lock up 10 – 14% of the cap in a goalie. If he wants to be the highest paid goalie in history, let someone else pay him.
For the fans that are immediately saying no I’m genuinely curious to know what your next plan would be for the rangers if they let igor walk
Look, I love Igor and I really hope we’re able to reach an extension with him that doesn’t hamper the team’s ability to build a true contender moving forward. But the second part of that sentence is key.
We are so spoiled to have only known elite goaltending for 30+ years at this point, but I’d be lying if I said I’m not at least curious what that $11-13M that Igor will likely get, could be used for elsewhere on the roster.
As we’ve seen in recent years, you don’t need an absolutely elite goaltender to win a cup, but you do at the very least need strong 5v5 play, above average center depth, and a very good defensive corps. I do genuinely wonder what this team could do with a middle of the pack goalie and a solid addition both up front and on the blue line.
Didn’t work out last time. I love Igor but the data shows you don’t need the top elite goalie to win a cup. You need big tough players that walk the line with being dirty to impose your will and break your opponent. Pay him enough to be the top paid goalie, but do t break the bank.
If you don’t want to pay Igor because you think if we put his money into an F or D that we’ll easily win a cup then please tell me why we’ve been more successful than Toronto?
I’d rather try to ride a top tier goalie to a cup, then watch our mid goalie get lit up in the first round every season.
In a vacuum yes, he deserves $12. HYPOTHETICALLY, yes you can win with Igor making $12 if you build around him perfectly.
But the problem is how narrow that needle is you need to build around him perfectly and nail all your draft picks that someone off the radar becomes a stud and is cheap talent.
In an Igor makes $12 world, your fancy 3C PP specialist Mika 8x $8.5 is completely devastating (as if it isn’t already)
We’re already throwing shit to the fan with this new (Blake wheeler/ Reilly smith) please save our top 6 on a budget plan because we’re already up against it.
It’s also worth mentioning you’re gonna eventually have to pay Laf $8M+ in 12 months.
The math starts to not add up when you’re keeping the same players while your vets (Mika/ Krieder/ Panarin/ Troch) are only getting closer to the end of their primes. Something has to give.
Moral of the story is, if you sign Igor for $12, you’re hoping the retool in 2026-2027 is quick because you’re gonna experience growing pains as the team is in purgatory as our expensive vets get less effective and we’re paying all our youth more than we were before. It ain’t great. The window is/ was 2022-2025.
Pay that man his money.
Hey I’m an idiot but please explain to me like I’m 5 how I’m supposed to believe the team that couldn’t win with the best goalie in the world making $5M is all of a sudden gonna win when we’re paying him $12M
The window was now. I don’t want to see Igor complaining when we’re the post cups Penguins spewing mediocrity (ya know except we don’t have the cups to begin with)
Signing Bob didn’t hamstring the panthers
10 mill seems fair.
If Swayman gets 10 million, Igor is getting at least 11
I just wanna point out that the cup-winning teams since the lockout pay their goalie an average of 8.7% of the cap (and this would be MUCH higher, closer to 9.5%, if not for literally just 2006 Cam Ward, 2012 Quick and 2023 Adin Hill), and that, no, letting Igor walk to pay a guy 5M because that’s a number we’re used to seeing instead of just paying Igor 11-12M even tho it’ll be a perfectly normal amount of cap to spend on a goalie in like 2 years anyway when he’s literally having an inner-circle HoF career is just a fucking braindead take and is proof positive you don’t get it.
11M next year would be 11.8% of the cap. Less than Bob’s % literally this past year and on par with what Giguere made in 2007, Flower made in 2009, Quick in 2014, and Vasy in 2021.
Don’t let the recency bias of Kuemper and Hill fool you. Well-compensated goalies win MUCH more than the cheapos do.
It’s not “no choice”. It’s “the objectively correct choice”. Fucks sake.
Another thread and again I’m floored at the amount of people saying let Igor walk.
I’m not saying I’m in love with the idea of paying him 12 million but when we have salaries like Mika, bread, troub, fox this is not a stretch. The only reason we’ve even had the success we’ve had the last few years is mostly due to Igor.
Pay him now and deal with it later. If we unfortunately miss this window and again have to do a partial rebuild then he can be easily moved for younger assets. Or you move someone else and he can be kept as an anchor for younger guys to play in front of and figure it out.
I can kind of understand the argument of past teams winning without paying their goalie a significant amount. Similar to rbs in the NFL. But I think that point isn’t too relevant. NHL teams pay their best players, in our situation Igor is our best player, and not too often is a goalie a teams best player. Given his age a 7-8 year contract is obviously concerning but that’s just the way it goes sometimes. Hopefully he’s killer in the first 5 years of that contract and it’s all worth it if he slows down the last 3. Who knows maybe he’s great till the very end.
With the team that nyr has currently. With czar Igor. Will they win the cup ? At all
Shesty has been one of if not the top goaltender in the league since he came into it, he has been dominant and put us in many many winning positions, him and Quick are the best duo in the league, we were a few ‘ref stolen’ games away from the finals, pay this man….wtf why is this even a discussion.
Let him go. We can’t check all our boxes with a greedy player. Team will have to learn how to play with a lesser goalie.
Next offseason in this subreddit is gonna be fun 😅
He’s the only high paid player who shows up in the playoffs. Panarin Trouba and Mika all sucked in the playoffs. AGAIN
NHL is a business. He will be signed as he can take the team past the first round. The team makes $$$$ each round of the playoffs.
I mean yah. Any team has to pay their superstar. You don’t see Leon, Mathews. Crosby leaving or taking huge discounts.
Some of yall seem really nostalgic for the years between Richter and Hank lol
*This article was sponsored by Igor’s agent
there’s virtually no correlation between goalie AAV and cup success. in recent history, teams have won cups with cheap goalies and expensive goalies, good goalies and bad goalies
you can pay Igor $11m *and* build a cup winner. you just have to know how to properly evaluate the talent in your organization, find undervalued talent on the market, and also hand out undervalued contracts. but Chris Drury and Ryan Martin have shown next to zero ability to actually do this. example, the Panthers gave Evan Rodrigues a $3m AAV last year, who obviously was a major piece of their cup win. Meanwhile, Drury/Martin gave Goodrow $3.6m to be a liability when he stepped on the ice, and he was so bad to the point that Drury waived him after the season. Drury/Martin just gave Lindgren a $4.5m cap hit, despite the fact that there were so many better defensemen who signed for league min this offseason with other teams
No
And they fuckin should.
Didn’t realize Igor’s agent wrote for BR
Oh no, our star goalie who single handedly carries our team for stretches of the season and is always capable of stealing games for us deserves to be paid accordingly.
I think the problem is I have no connection to Igor. He kind of bores me. Vs. Hank, Richter, etc who were kind of fun and cool.
Thank You Bleacher Report for my “No fuckin shit” moment of today.
This might be an unpopular take, well, almost certainly.
But I don’t think we need to have the best goaltender in the world. Edmonton made it to the final and almost won with stewart skinner.
Maybe he proves me wrong, but I’ve been a hater for a while on him.
I would much rather have a goalie in the 7-9 million dollar range than the 10-12 million range.
That might not be a big difference in money, but let’s say we have an extra 3 million that isn’t going into goal. That’s most of the way to an additional decent player.
So I guess what we need to do is look at the difference between a 7-9 million dollar goalie and Igor, who will probably be at 11m aav.
I look at swayman. He’s still really, really good. Contract negotiations might be kind of hard for boston right now, but he’s not going to get Igor money, and I mean, I don’t think he’s that much worse.
Who knows, maybe we can trade Igor at the deadline or sooner to Boston for Swayman and another player. Probably not getting a Pasternack or McAvoy, but they do have others that would slot in nicely in New York.
Also, Swayman is American, and we last won the cup with an American between the pipes.
Pay Igor.
This should not even be a debate.
Pay the man
Pay him. Not only is he NOT the problem but he elevates this team. The bigger contracts to forwards/defenseman that are aging will hold us back more.
So Bruins fan here this popped up on my feed. pay Sherstekin so long as you’re not neglecting other areas. Swayman is currently delusional and thinks he’s worth like 9 or 10M when he’s never even played more than 44 games. not only that the Bruins couldn’t even give him that contract without trading someone. unless it’s like McDavid you’re not going to meet stupid demands like that. as someone else pointed out here how many cups did Henrik bring? goalies are important but not important enough to handcuff a team into a bad contract. Just my 2 cents.