Bosc wrote:
saskhab wrote:
More about the Crawford contract, peak ability and so on:
http://www.mc79hockey.com/?p=6252Rick Tabaracci as a top-3 from the first list! Awesome!
Sask, how did/do you feel about Howard's deal? Same term, will start this season so the same age as Crawford's, .75M less money.
If you take the argument Dellow makes there, it's a decent deal with some risk. Howard is above average for his career to date and even if he exhibits normal decline I think there's a reasonable chance he's at least an average NHL goalie for the majority of his deal. He could have a bad year or two tacked onto the end but not something that is a disaster. At that point, the cap is higher, the bad money is easier to deal with (either via trade or by not playing him as much). Like Dellow said, we're talking adding $4m to stop this extra shots that a backup can't, and a backup is making about $1.5m.
Any kind of term like this for a goalie is a bad idea. Price's deal is bad ($5m above Budaj), and I think Price massively underachieved this past year and is much closer to his 10/11 peak than that, and the Habs are paying him for ages 25-31. Best case scenario for Montreal is Fucale pans out, is ready at 21-22, Price still has some trade value at 28-29 and they move him a la Theodore.
I put up a bit of a challenge on Twitter the other day as this whole 'Goalies Don't Improve' theory is gaining steam. We don't know what the peak age of a goalie's performance is, but the theory is it's earlier than even 25. To test the theory, I want them to examine what ages AHL goalies tend to peak at, not NHL goalies, since the vast majority of Under 25 goalies that make the NHL are still in the AHL. If the theory holds water, the same trends will exist in the AHL and we come to the somewhat shocking conclusion that there are more than a few of the best goalies on the planet playing their best years mainly in the minors.
You might want to pick up Robin Lehner in your pools, folks.
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