New York Rangers: What Binnington’s playoff run means for goalies

In every sport, agents and franchises look for precedent when it comes to contract negotiations. Jordan Binnginton of the St. Louis Blues may have just complicated things for all 31 NHL teams including the New York Rangers.

The St. Louis Blues captured the organization’s first Stanley Cup on the back of rookie goaltender Jordan Binnington. The Ontario native’s road to the NHL alone, let alone success was improbable. At one point last year, Binnington rejected a demotion and was loaned to the Boston Bruins’ AHL affiliate.

As part of this journey, the goaltender played on three straight one year contracts before finally breaking through this year. Now, at 25-years-old, the goaltender is a restricted free agent looking for a major pay raise from his previous $650,000. The Blues have around $18 million in cap space for this summer, seven restricted and four unrestricted free agents that need extensions.

The most complicated of said free agents is their rookie netminder. As previously mentioned, agents and teams typically look to similar players for a baseline in contract negotiations. However, the goalie position is complicated to begin with and the fact that there is no netminder similar to Binnington in terms of track record puts the Blues in an impossible decision.

The goalie is two years away from unrestricted free agent status so the Blues will have to determine whether Binnington is part of the long-term plan or his performance was an aberration in a very short period of time. The baseline evaluation is somewhere between $5 and $6 million per season according to Pierre LeBrun of the Athletic.

The unique factor is since there’s no precedent for someone in Binnington’s situation, he will, in fact, be setting the benchmark.

This brings us to the New York Rangers and the goalie position of the future.

Igor, Georgie and the King

At least for the start of this upcoming season, Henrik Lundqvist is expected to be the Rangers’ starting goaltender for the 13th straight season. Whether or not he remains on that role will be results-based as the stretch run of the 2018-2019 season proved.

There are no mincing words, backup Alexandar Georgiev outplayed Lundqvist in the final month and a half of the season and its why head coach David Quinn rode the Bulgarian. The backup broke up Lundqvist’s run as the unquestioned starter that stretched more than a decade. It’s partly due to the team in front of him, but the point still remains, Lundqvist struggled.

Throw in the arrival of the long assumed heir to the crease this fall in Igor Shesterkin from the KHL and the Rangers’ goalie situation is a lot less clear. The fact that Shesterkin has an opt-out clause where he can go back to Russia instead of accepting an AHL assignment could ultimately end up forcing New York’s hand sooner than it would like.

In terms of money, Lundqvist makes $8.5 million each of the next two seasons, Georgiev makes $792,500 for 2019-2020 then becomes RFA and Shesterkin has a two-year entry-level contract.

While it would take an improbable Cup Final run similar to Binnington for either Shesterkin or Georgiev to get a significant pay bump, it does raise the question, what’s the target cap hit for a starting goaltender and when do they cost too much?

As this postseason proved, tying up too much cap up in a single player comes at the detriment of the overall quality of the team. Of the final four teams in the playoffs this year, no player made more than Brent Burns’ $8 million. That’s a shade over 10 percent of this past year’s $79.5 million per year.

The future

The goalie position is always going to be one that teams try to skimp out on. As both the Carolina Hurricanes and Calgary Flames demonstrated during the regular season, a tandem of slightly above average goaltenders is perfectly fine for traversing the regular season and playing in front of them can lighten the load tremendously.

Whether Binnington tries to force the Blues into arbitration or not will be a good measure as to where the goalie market as a whole is going. While Sergei Bobrovsky may break the bank in terms of average annual salary, it’s rare for a netminder of his caliber to hit the open market. Instead, Binnington’s RFA contract is more indicative of the path teams take at the position.

For the most part, goalie is the position in which a team tries to groom through its own system over time. Therefore, the spot starter that goes onto lead a team deep into the postseason is a more likely outcome than the superstar goalie reaching free agency.

For the Rangers, this means that keeping either Shesterkin or Georgiev in the ballpark of $5 to $6 million when restricted free agency comes around in the not so distant future is crucial for sustainability.