New York Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin recently rejected an eight-year, $88 million dollar offer from Rangers general manager Chris Drury. The offer would have made Shesterkin the highest-paid goalie in National Hockey League (NHL) history.
Why would anyone reject an offer from a cup contender of that magnitude? Well, Igor did because he feels like he is good enough to receive a contract with an average annual value as high as the highest in the league. The top five highest AAVs in the league are as follows: Leon Draisaitl makes 14 million, Auston Matthews makes 13.25 million, Nathan MacKinnon earns 12.6 million, Connor McDavid earns 12.5 million and Artemi Panarin pulls in 11.64 million.
If Igor had accepted the Rangers offer, his AAV would have been tied for 10th in the league with Drew Doughty, Rasmus Dahlin and John Tavares according to Spotrac.com.
Is Shesterkin Worth the Highest AAV in the League?
There is no question that for the last three seasons, Igor Shesterkin has been one of the best goalies in the NHL, but last season his numbers weren’t even close to being the best in the league. To bring some perspective to my argument, let’s look at the top AAVs among NHL goalies, currently.
"When it's all said and done, he will be the highest paid goalie in league history… He's very deserving of that now." – @KevinWeekes
Igor Shesterkin isn't just going to get paid; he's going to make some history. 💰@BriBrows22 | @Rupper17 | #NYR | #NHLNow pic.twitter.com/ZtpXGd5Z9p
— NHL Network (@NHLNetwork) October 17, 2024
Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens earns the highest AAV at $10.5 million. Sergei Bobrovsky who recently was the Florida Panthers number one goalie on their Stanley cup championship run comes in at second with a $10 million AAV. In the playoffs last year, Bobrovsky and Shesterkin had almost the same GAA, but Shesterkin had a better SV% (.926 compared to .906). Coming in at third is the only two-time Stanley cup champion goalie still in the league and that’s Andrei Vasilevskiy, who makes $9.5 million annually.
Now, let’s look at how Shesterkin’s play has been since playing his first full season in 2021-22. During the 2023-24 NHL season, Shesterkin won 36 games, posted a 2.58 goals-against-average (GAA) and a .912 save percentage (SV%). In terms of GAA, Shesterkin ranked tied for 11th in the league and SV% he ranked 11th as well while he ranked tied for third for wins. This represents a significant decline from Shesterkin’s Vezina trophy winning season of 2021-22 where he led the league in both GAA (2.07) and SV% (.935) and finished top ten in wins.
The fact of the matter is the numbers don’t lie and Shesterkin isn’t worth the league-high AAV of 14 million based on the numbers he put up last season. Last season, Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets took home the Vezina trophy for posting 37 wins, a 2.39 GAA and .921 SV %, which ranked second in the NHL last year. He is signed to a seven-year, $59.5 million contract that pays him 8.5 million per year.
Would the Rangers Trade Shesterkin?
This may seem like a preposterous thing to say but hear me out. If talks don’t go well from now until the trade deadline between Drury and Shesterkin, the Rangers could investigate trading their star goaltender. The only way a trade would make sense for the Rangers is if they got a player of equal value in return. This would not be a trade that’s made for draft picks or prospects– it would be a blockbuster deal. One player who it would make sense to deal Shesterkin for is Brady Tkachuk.
Tkachuk has three things hockey teams covet from forwards: size, speed and scoring ability. The son of former NHLer Keith Tkachuk is signed to a seven-year deal that makes him $8.2 million per year and is coming off his third consecutive 30-goal season. Just think, Brady Tkachuk scored 37 goals and had 37 assists last year on a team that finished 26th out of 32 teams in the NHL’s overall standings. Imagine what he could do on the Rangers second line with two playmakers in Vincent Trocheck and Alexis Lafreniere.
If the Rangers need to trade Shesterkin, Tkachuk would be the player to acquire because he would add that size and grit that the Rangers top six forward group so desperately lack outside of Chris Kreider and Will Cuylle come playoff time.
Is it worth giving up one of the best goalies in the league for one of the best power forwards in the league? Yes, Chris Kreider may be a very good power forward who scored 39 goals last season, but Tkachuk would score more than him if he’s on the Rangers.
In addition, the Rangers have a backup in Jonathan Quick who showed last season he still has what it takes to be a number one goalie. Last season, the two-time cup winning goaltender went 18-6-2 with a .911 SV% and a 2.62 GAA. His SV% was one point below Shesterkin’s, which makes making a trade seem a lot less daunting.
Crunching the Numbers
The eight-year, $88 million offer that the Rangers made would more than double Shesterkin’s AAV. He and his agent are trying to price-gouge the Rangers.
Let’s say that when talks resume, Shesterkin asks for $12.5 million per year. That means the Rangers need to allocate $12.5 million out of next year’s available cap space for one player. Spotrac.com projects the Rangers will have roughly $29 million in cap space next offseason. That’s a decent amount of space but it shrinks quickly when you consider the Rangers will need to sign 11 players with that money. So that means if the Rangers cave to Shesterkin’s asking price, they will have $16.5 million to sign 11 players and those players will include key restricted free agents like K’Andre Miller, Alexis Lafreniere and Will Cuylle.
The team comes before any single player and that’s how the Rangers need to treat Shesterkin’s contract talks. He is worth $11 million per year and that’s final.
