Follow me on twitter
James Reimer and the Toronto Maple Leafs avoided arbitration and agreed to terms on a two year 4.6 million dollar contract.
As it stands now the Maple Leafs will be committing 5.2 million dollars to their goaltending tandem which includes Reimer as well as Jonathan Bernier.
With Reimer's annual cap hit of 2.3 million he is priced to move via trade. There should be teams out there that are willing to get league average or above goaltending on the cheap *cough Jets cough*
The Penguins should be in that boat but they are going into next year are committing exactly 6.0 million to the position. Marc Andre Fleury is in the last year of his deal which carries a 5.0 million dollar cap hit. Thomas Greiss will be making 1.0 million on his deal this upcoming season.
Here are the rankings
Thomas Greiss is second best out of 72 goaltenders with an EVSV% of .934%
Jonathan Bernier is 19th out of 72 with an EVSV% of .927%
James Reimer is 23rd out of 72 with an EVSV% of .926%
Marc Andre Fleury is 37th out of 72 with an EVSV% of .922%.
Here are some other lists that were researched by
Pensburgh's Lyle Kossis
Something to remember about Fleury's 5 million dollar annual cap hit is that it might look to be an "average" salary now, but when it was originally signed in the summer of 2008 he was being paid 9% of the Penguins cap space to be an elite goaltender. There is no arguing the fact that he hasn't come close to those expectations.
People will continue to ignore objective data and try to push along the fiction that Fleury has helped the Penguins, but he hasn't. The Penguins have won in spite of him most of the time. There is a sizable group of people who will point to Fleury's win totals, however goaltender wins are a team stat, not a reliable individual metric. Antti Niemmi is an example of this last season. Niemmi has had good years in the past, but last year was not one of them, yet his .913% save percentage still got him 39 wins. Playing on a dominate Sharks team can help with those win totals despite lowly numbers much like playing on very good Penguins teams can inflate those totals as well.
At best Fleury has treaded water since signing his huge contract. At worst he has single handedly buried the Penguins in the post season.
The Penguins seem content on rolling forward with Fleury in 2014-15 so James Reimer (or any other goalie) does not appear to be a realistic option at this point. If that is the route Pittsburgh is going to take so be it, but there should be absolutely no discussions about a contract extension for Fleury.
These lists provided show time and time again just how many goalies, big name or not, can play at the same level or above Fleury and most times cheaper.
Ignore the numbers if you want, they aren't going away anytime soon.
Thanks for reading!
Follow me on twitter
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»