Sportsnet: Jennifer Botterill and Luke Gazdic when asked if teams should be paying top money for goaltending.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
David Amber: “Next year, the reason I bring that up is because we’re going to take a look at the highest AAVs for goalies around the league, and you see Ottinger, Ullmark, Swayman, and all minting those $8.25 million deals. Which begs the question, philosophically, you guys, if you’re running an NHL franchise, are you going to pay top dollar for goaltending, knowing that that position has been a bit precarious in recent years, Jennifer?
Botterill: “I think absolutely you invest in that position. You look at the board you just showed there, David, you have the (Sergei) Bobrovsky and (Andrei) Vasilevskiy at the at the top of that list, right? So you have three of your last five Stanley Cups have been awarded to these two goaltenders.
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So if you’re a franchise and you’re, you’re in this league, your goal is to win a Stanley Cup. So how important is the goaltender position? I would say extremely.
And I know some people are saying, well, overall, there’s the rest-to-work ratio where maybe some of these goaltenders are not playing as many games as they used to. But the whole idea as an athlete is to peak for the right time of the season. If you look at the Stanley Cup Champions League has been massively important.”
Amber: “But the rebuttal there is Adin Hill, Jordan Binnington. You know, you rattled off the top, I’m bringing up some guys who were, came out of nowhere and won. Patrick Roy was a rookie when he won. Like he had, you didn’t have to invest $10 million in a guy necessarily.”
Botterill: “That’s a little more risky.”
Gazdic: “That’s a situation where things just fall into play. I think that in an era where we’re watching starting goalies start less games than ever, I think they’re more valuable than ever. The game is in a place right now where I don’t think we’ve seen players with as much speed and skill as we ever have before. Teams, players are better than they ever have.
If you have the number one goaltender who’s reliable, you pay that man. Igor Shesterin, if I’m the New York Rangers right now and Chris Drury, that’s a blank check for Igor.
They will win you a Stanley Cup. They will, if you watch the, especially the examples that Jenn just put, goaltenders in today’s NHL are so valuable to their teams that I think these $8 million contracts. Like eight mill for someone like Oettinger, I think that’s a steal. I, if I’m a GM, they’re getting whenever they want.”
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Amber: “The one caveat, they better stay healthy, right?”
Gazdic: “True.”