One of the most common arguments against signing Ilya Bryzgalov to a contract that will carry a heavy cap hit is that spending too heavily on goaltending cuts so deeply into a club's all-around depth that it cannot win the Stanley Cup. I decided to put that idea to the test.
Let's suppose that the salary cap next season is $62.4 million and the Flyers were to pay Bryzgalov $6 million against the cap, plus $1.75 million to Sergei Bobrovsky. Let's also assume that the two goalies are healthy all year and no callups are necessary and that the Flyers spend to the cap max by the end of the year.
The goalie salaries would amount to 12.4% of the Flyers' cap limit. If Philly were to go on to win the Cup. that salary percentage would be right near the top of any team to win a Cup since the implementation of the salary cap. However, if Bryzgalov were to carry a cap hit of $5 million via a longer-term contract, the percentage would drop to 10.8% of the cap ceiling, and would not be all that outrageous. Even at a $5.5 million cap it, if the team remains reasonably healthy and performs to expectations-- two pretty big "ifs" -- the goalie salaries needn't strangle the team.
I took a look at all of the Stanley Cup winners in the cap era to see how much the championship club paid their goaltenders. I searched first for full-team data (via capgeek.com and other sources), which enables you not only to see how closely a team spent to the salary cap ceiling but also to break down the percentages of the payroll that a team devoted to its goalies, defense and forwards.
When full-team cap data was available, I broke down the percentage spent on goaltending. When I couldn't find it, I listed only goalie salaries.
This season, the Boston Bruins spent $60,179,106 in total salary in real dollars. Cap-wise, the Bruins spent $6.25 million on goalies against the $59.4 million cap ceiling. That breaks down to 10.5 percent of the Bruins' cap limit being spent on goaltending. Tim Thomas carried a $5 million cap hit, while Tuukka Rask got $1.25 million. The runner-up Canucks spent $62,871,434 in real dollars on salary. Cap-wise, it broke down to about 10.49%. Roberto Luongo earned $5,333,333 and Corey Schneider got $895,161 against the cap. Eddie Läck spent a day on the NHL roster and counted an additional $4,839 for cap purposes.
The 2009-10 Chicago Blackhawks spent to within $1,037,456 of the salary cap (actually, when you include bonuses that carried over into this season's cap hit, they overspent their cap by $4,157,753). In cap dollars, the team spent $6,468,326 on goaltenders, which includes three days that Corey Crawford spent on the NHL roster and one day for Joe Fallon. Cristobal Huet made a whopping $5.625 million against the cap, while eventual playoff starter Antti Niemi made just $826,875.
Goalie spending represented 11.4 percent of the Blackhawks' cap that season. Was it money spent wisely? Certainly not if you consider Huet's cap hit alone, since he was outperformed and displaced by Niemi. But, in the aggregate, it worked out just fine, since the Hawks lifted the Cup at the end of the playoffs.
In 2008-09, the Pittsburgh Penguins spent $55,860,867 on salary, of which about 10% went to goaltending. The Pens spent $5 million of their cap dollars ($3.5 million in actual dollars) on starting goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. Primary backup Dany Sabourin (19 games played) had a prorated $600,000 salary, and the team also had low-salary backups in Mathieu Garon (prorated deal after coming over from Edmonton) and short-term callup John Curry.
In 2007-08, the Detroit Red Wings spent a relatively thrifty $3.46 million of its cap space on its veteran goalie tandem of Dominik Hasek and Chris Osgood. The latter ended up being the primary playoff starter. The Red Wings paid $2.05 million to Hasek and $1,416,667 in cap dollars ($1.7 million in real dollars) on Chris Osgood. In addition, the club briefly carried Jimmy Howard (then on an entry-level deal paying a prorated $733,333) on its roster during the regular season that year.
In 2006-07, the Anaheim Ducks spent a total $40.0739 million (including a buyout of Tyler Wright) against the cap, devoting a little over $5 million or roughly 12.47 percent of its spending on its goaltenders. Starting goalie Jean-Sabastien Giguere earned $3.99 milllion on the cap that season, which he parlayed after the Cup season into his just-expired long-term contract with a cap hit of $6 million. Ilya Bryzgalov earned $1 million as the backup. The team also briefly had low-salary callups Sabastien Caron and Mike Wall on the roster during the season.
In 2005-06, the Carolina Hurricanes split the regular season goaltending duties between Swiss veteran Martin Gerber (60 GP) and rookie Cam Ward (28 GP). Ward, of course, went on to become the starter in the playoffs and has been the Canes' top goalie ever since. He was still on his first pro contract, and earned $684,000 in Carolina's Cup season, while Gerber made $1.064 million. Note: After the season, Ward received a 192 percent raise, and his salary cap hit jumped up to $2.67 million.
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The Edmonton Journal posted a translation of a
Czech newspaper article in which soon-to-be unrestricted free agent goaltender Tomas Vokoun was interviewed about his potential destinations.
Vokoun stated that, while he is interested in returning to Florida given a fair offer, he would also consider offers from Stanley Cup contenders, among which he (rather oddly) identified the rebuilding Colorado Avalanche.
The Journal translation also has Vokoun saying that he's "heard from" the Flyers. I suspect that this is a mistranslation -- prepositions are extremely easy to mess up in translation, and can sometimes change the meaning of a sentence. I suspect that what Vokoun actually said is that he's heard about the Flyers having interest in him.
This is a very important distinction: If Vokoun said the former, he would be casually telling the press that the Flyers were guilty of tampering. The latter makes more sense, especially in light of the fact that the Flyers traded for Bryzgalov's negotiating rights but probably would still have interest in Vokoun if they are unable to get Bryzgalov signed.
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I will not be posting a blog tomorrow, as it will be a travel day for me. Sunday's blog will put to the test another theory that has been floating around: Sergei Bobrovsky can't develop properly as an NHL goalie if he only plays about 20-30 games per season over the next several years.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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