Igor Shesterkin is one of the best goaltenders in the NHL, amid what could be one of the best goaltending careers of all time.
As he officially entered his contract year with a 6-0 shutout Wednesday, one more thing was abundantly clear: Soon, he will become the highest-paid goaltender in NHL history.
The Rangers reportedly attempted to give him that title with an eight-year, $88 million offer before the season kicked off. The deal would have surpassed the eight-year, $84 million deal that former Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price signed in 2017. Shesterkin decided to bet on himself even harder, turning the deal down and posting the aforementioned opening night shutout.
He's the latest of several recent NHL goalies fighting for better salaries as the salary cap continues to rise. Given that Shesterkin is the most important player on the Rangers most nights, why would we blame him for wanting a contract that reflects that via cap percentage?
The understanding that star players and their agents are seeking raises that reflect a bigger percentage of the team's cap now that the salary cap is rising in real time is paramount, here. Comparables from even a few years ago are going to be outdated as the league keeps growing financially, and the old arguments against paying goalies "too much" are equally outdated as the sport's analytics culture grows.
Leon Draisaitl's extension kicks in at $14 million per year next season, the richest AAV in league history until (at least) his teammate Connor McDavid's contract is up. Draisaitl and McDavid both eat in between 15-16 percent of the Oilers' cap apiece. We keep seeing new contract records because of the rising salary cap, and because of the shift to thinking about it as cap percentage per star player.
It seems that this mentality partly earned Jeremy Swayman his eight-year extension carrying an $8.25 million average annual value. It was a hard-fought, public, messy negotiation process, but it was a statement as we're wading through new positional markets in the new cap era.
Swayman had to fight to get $3 million fewer per year than Bruins' star winger David Pastrňák, and now it looks like Shesterkin's camp is seeking a similar proportion of the Rangers' cap to their star winger, Artemi Panarin, who rakes in $11.6 million per year.
This brings us to the mentality some teams harbor around paying goalies that this crop of stars is trying to change. One argument has been "Since they don't play every game they shouldn't be paid as such."
This has always been silly, considering no skater plays 60 minutes of a game, which goalies do. It's even sillier when you consider no two situations are alike -- like skaters, some goalies are better than others, and then some tandems impact usage.
Shesterkin has played at least 50 games per season for the past three seasons, owns a career regular-season .921 save percentage, and has been an extremely valuable part of the Rangers' perennial success as they started their winning era ahead of schedule when he arrived and they haven't looked back.
And, hello, are we forgetting he plays every must-win playoff game (if not every playoff game)? He owns a career .928 save percentage in the playoffs and sits at 15.62 playoff goals saved above expected according to Evolving Hockey. He has won playoff games for this team, bails them out of playoff losses, and somehow elevates his game when it matters the most.
We don't know exactly what Shesterkin's ask is, and he's said he wants to focus on hockey until the off-season, but his contract will set the tone for the goalie market in the era of the rising cap. He has a responsibility to his goalie peers to re-set their cap percentage and get the piece of the pie they've earned, and it looks like he's honoring that responsibility.
