The last (or maybe second to last) piece to fall as the Ottawa Senators prepare for the upcoming season will be the extension of RFA goaltender Robin Lehner. He's kind of a tricky case -- his splits are fantastic, he's a former second-round pick, and he has that massive frame that organizations love.
On the other hand, Lehner had a rocky 2013-2014 season. His SV% dipped to .913 -- partly due to expected regression from the year prior's ridiculous run, partly due to the fact that the defense he was playing behind was something out of a carnival act.
Because of both of these points, you can see why the Lehner negotiations may take a bit of time. Truthfully, I think there's more on Lehner's side to warrant a nice deal coming out of his entry-level contract, but I bet last season did enough to deflate the contract number a bit for the budgeted Ottawa Senators.
I've been thinking about what his next contract will look like for a variety of reasons -- if not for the fact that he's the heir apparent to Craig Anderson, then for the fact that Ottawa still needs to sign him to get to their 23-player max and above the cap floor.
In trying to figure out the number, I took some goalies who have recently inked deals with RFA status, the majority of which were coming out of their entry-level contract. A guy like Ben Bishop is also included, who kind of got his 'real' deal after toiling on one-year contracts and playing the waiting game.
Anyways, the group I think is fairly solid -- the save percentages are tightly bunched, as is the shot volume (or, usage) for each guy leading into his new deal. The right column (the following year's cap hit) has been adjusted for inflation, so the numbers of years past can still be applicable:
If you're kind of eyeballing for the best comparable of all, I think Semyon Varlamov is probably the answer. Now, Varlamov inked a massive deal just recently, but his first deal coming out of his entry level contract was fairly reasonable. He's faced very comparable shot volume, and basically stopped shots at the exact same rate. The only differentiating factor, I think, is that Varlamov was/is the sexier of the two as a former first-round pick.
If I'm Ottawa, though, I'm looking at Braden Holtby. Here's a third-round pick that, despite his average frame, stopped a better percentage of shots with comparable volume. Holtby's contract was kept under $2MM AAV and was two years in length.
For Ottawa on Lehner's next deal, I think anything under $3MM AAV is fair price -- especially since you know the contract's going to be multi-year. You can kind of see where this number's going to fall, maybe in the $2.6MM - $3MM range.
Anything significantly above that, I don't see the justification for. Anything below that, Ottawa did well in negotiating.
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Ottawa Senators Blogger • 
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