Anders Nilsson Re-Signed for 2 Years (Senators)

Senators

Anders Nilsson Re-Signed for 2 Years

By Trevor Shackles

May 29, 2019 • 2:50 pm

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Today the Senators announced the re-signing of Anders Nilsson to a two-year, $2.6M per year contract:

This news doesn’t come as a total surprise, although I wasn’t totally sure if they were going to keep him around.

Even though this is just a backup goaltender signing, there are lots of moving parts and effects of this contract. First of all, Nilsson seems like a genuinely great person and is a huge advocate for LGBTQ rights, so it’s hard not to like that aspect of the signing:

In the larger picture, re-signing Nilsson is good for team chemistry and morale, and it probably won’t be very harmful. However, there are some legitimate concerns regarding how good he really is, as well as how this affects the other goaltenders in the organization. If the Senators have a plan for how they want to divide ice-time amongst their goaltenders this season, then I think I would feel a lot better, but as it stands, I don’t even know if they actually have a plan. Let’s go through the goaltender depth chart, which is quite crowded right now.

Craig Anderson will be the starter, although he has just one year left on his contract before he probably retires. I never want to wish harm on any player, especially a Senator, but I think even the organization has to recognize that it’s probably beneficial if he misses some time due to injury so that other goalies can slot into their proper position. I don’t think they’ll be able to trade him due to his $4.75M cap hit, and I can’t see them buying him out either. If his contract expired in 2019, I would be much more on board with bringing back Nilsson.

Mike Condon would be the third goalie on the depth chart, although it seems as if Ottawa is going to try to forget that he even exists. He has one year left on his contract at $2.4M, but it seems as if he is either going to be on LTIR or he could be a buyout candidate. If he is healthy and does not get moved, then that is a big problem for the Senators goalie prospects. Marcus Hogberg (who needs to be re-signed) would hopefully be the first goalie to be called up if Anderson or Nilsson get hurt, and in a best-case scenario, he gets to play between 10-20 games in the NHL. He is turning 25 in November, and the Senators need to see what they have in him eventually. However, he is more likely to be the AHL starter now that Nilsson is re-signed.

Filip Gustavsson will probably be the AHL backup, but perhaps there is an outside of the box option such as loaning him back to an SHL club. He is still only 21, and he probably won’t be getting that many starts in the AHL unless there is an injury or two for an extended period of time. Joey Daccord might be in the awful situation of having to shuttle between the ECHL and AHL throughout the season, which I really don’t want a top prospect to have to go through because the ECHL is a mess.

Things will be complicated if no goalies are moved and they are healthy to begin the season, but sometimes these things work themselves out. I’m not ruling out the possibility that Hogberg gets enough starts in the NHL and that Gustavsson and Daccord split duties in Belleville, but right now it looks awfully crowded on the depth chart. The actual results of the games next year won’t matter much at all, but something such as the proper amount of games played for Hogberg, Gustavsson, and Daccord definitely matters, so if Ottawa can accomplish that, then I am totally fine with keeping Nilsson.

Nilsson’s cap hit of $2.6M is inconsequential because they need to reach the cap floor anyway, so I couldn’t care less about that. I don’t love that they decided to give him two years though because this is the third backup goaltender in four years that they have given a multi-year contract after playing well for a brief portion of the season---and the previous two contracts for Andrew Hammond and Mike Condon did not turn out well at all. At least Nilsson’s deal is only two years and not three, but I would have been more understanding of a one-year contract.

It would also be a different story if Nilsson was an above average backup or a 1B-type, but he’s essentially been an average backup at best, and probably slightly worse. In 141 career NHL games, he has a .907 SV%, which ranks tied for 76th amongst 111 goalies who have played at least 30 games in that span. If we include just the past three seasons (thereby excluding his first three poor seasons), he ranks 40th out of 70. He also ranked 40th out of 67 goalies this season in goals saved above average (GSAA) at -2.04 because he was not very good in his 12 games in Vancouver. Even at his best, he is about an average backup.

He looks a bit better over the past few seasons and was genuinely solid for Ottawa with a .914 SV% in 24 games. At the same time, Mike Condon did a very similar thing by posting a .914 SV% in 40 games in 2016-17, then reverted back to form right after that. What is Nilsson moving forward then? His upside is essentially a good enough backup who can play 30-40 games, but he probably isn’t going to be someone who can turn into a starter all of a sudden. There’s something to be said for having a 29-year-old goalie who can play a decent amount of games in the NHL though, especially if we expect Anderson to miss some time on the IR.

We’ll have to wait and see if there is another shoe to drop with the goalie jam in the organization or if they just hope that one of them gets injured. One thing seems certain: players will be happy to have him back:

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