Early Trading: Latest on Shesterkin and Swayman
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TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun joins Gino Reda to discuss the contract status of Igor Shesterkin and Jeremy Swayman. Be sure to watch an expanded version of Insider Trading Tuesday on SportsCentre
Shesterkin’s negotiations with Rangers heat up
Gino Reda: It’s the Early Edition of Insider Trading with Pierre LeBrun. The full version of Insider Trading with LeBrun, Darren Dreger, and Chris Johnston, is coming up on SportsCentre. But Pierre is working on a couple of stories that we thought you should know about right now.
There’s a bit of a theme here. Two teams are trying to lock up their No. 1 goalies to long-term deals and neither seem to be having success.
Let’s start with Igor Shesterkin and the New York Rangers.
Pierre LeBrun: There is ongoing dialogue, which is a positive. The Rangers are trying to do everything they can to lock up arguably the best goalie in the world to a long-term deal, but it’s not done yet.
Here’s what I can tell you. The first thing is that this is time sensitive. Shesterkin’s camp has indicated to the Rangers that they’d rather not negotiate once the puck drops on the Rangers’ season on Oct. 9. The second thing is our understanding is that Shesterkin’s camp want to reset the goalie market. Goalies have kind of come under duress in terms of their contract extensions the last few years and Shesterkin is trying to eclipse that.
Case and point is Juuse Saros, who is one of the best goalies in the world, signed an eight-year extension at $7.74 million a year [with the Nashville Predators]. The summer before that, Connor Hellebuyck, who had UFA leverage, ended up signing for $8.5 million a year [with the Winnipeg Jets]. It’s not a bad deal, but it’s below what Shesterkin is looking to sign. Ilya Sorokin of the New York Islanders signed an eight-year contract worth $8.25 million a season.
Shesterkin is looking to blast through all three of those contracts and I think he will. The question is if he’ll do it in a Rangers’ uniform or on the open market next July 1.
An important element to add to all this is that the Rangers have let Shesterkin’s camp know that they’re willing to pay him more than the $10.5 million a season, which is more than what Carey Price made with the Montreal Canadiens – the highest-paid contract still on the books in the NHL.
The Rangers are willing to go north of $10.5 million and yet this deal is still not done.
So, where does that leave us? Is he looking for $11.5 million, $12 million, or $13 million?
The bottom line is that they believe the cap is going up, which it is, hence the percentage of the cap that the can pay players is going up. Even though other team around the league are trying to minimize what they pay goalies, Shesterkin’s camp says not them.
Swayman, Bruins still status quo a week into training camp
Reda: We’re ready for a new high-water mark on the goaltending front.
The Rangers still have some time because Shesterkin has a year left on his deal. But the situation is much more critical in Boston where it’s almost a full week into their camp and the Bruins still don’t have their No. 1 under contract.
Jeremy Swayman is a restricted free agent and he and the Bruins seem to be at a stalemate right now.
LeBrun: There’s ongoing dialogue. I checked in on this again on Tuesday and I was told it’s status quo and they’re still not there.
It gives me the sense that, even despite the pressure of the situation, that their real deadline is opening night as opposed to the start of camp last week. Both sides will keep going here.
The key thing is that Swayman is still very focused on getting an eight-year deal. That’s still the No. 1 priority for him, and the Bruins are looking at a long-term deal as well.
But, you can’t have the Shesterkin discussion without having Swayman tied into it in the sense that they are different negotiations. Swayman, in terms of the collective bargaining agreement, isn’t at the same leverage point because he won’t be a UFA at the end of the year. So, Shesterkin has the higher leverage point.
But in Swayman, there’s a bit of what I just talked about [with Shesterkin]. Just because all these goalies are signing for whatever they signed for the last couple years, that Swayman can’t find a way to push through.
I think we’re seeing that in his negotiations with the Bruins, so it’s a fascinating one.