New Jersey Devils: Predicting Mackenzie Blackwood’s next contract
Re-signing RFA goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood is the top priority for the New Jersey Devils this offseason.
After a disappointing 2019-20 season, the New Jersey Devils face a rather interesting offseason. They have over $25 million of cap space and, with just 13 players signed, they have about as blank of a slate to work with as you’re going to find short of an expansion team. However, re-signing restricted free agent goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood is the Devils’ top offseason priority.
Blackwood was one of the very few bright spots on the Devils last season. In his first season as a starting goalie, he appeared in 47 games and posted a .915% save percentage. Among goalies under the age of 25 years old (minimum 20 games), this ranked fourth in the NHL, trailing only Elvis Merzlikins, Tristan Jarry, and Andrei Vasilevskiy. Among rookies, only Merzlikins posted a better save percentage.
He’s clearly a part of the Devils future, whether it’s as the starting goalie or a very good goalie in a tandem. So what should Blackwood’s contract look like?
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Term
Historically, almost every goalie who has signed at Blackwood’s age (23) has signed a bridge deal as opposed to a long-term deal, which I’ll define as four years or longer.
The only exception in the 21st century is Marc-Andre Fleury. Even if you look at 24 year old goalies, there have only been two – Carey Price and Ondrej Pavelec. All three of those goalies had more games played than Blackwood by the time they signed their respective deals.
The Devils shouldn’t be opposed to a long-term deal, but because of the lack of relevant comparisons for both sides, I don’t see it happening.
So unless something unforeseen happens, the Devils are going to sign Blackwood to a bridge deal (defined as one to three years). There’s a lot more comparables here, but let’s look at the most relevant ones.
Cap Hit
First off, there’s Robin Lehner. Back in 2014, when he was with the Ottawa Senators, he signed a three-year deal worth $2.225 million annually (3.22% of the cap ceiling at the time). This was six years ago, but this remains a starting point for most RFA goalie negotiations.
A more recent example is Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets. Back in 2017, he was awarded a one-year deal worth $2.25 million (3% of the cap ceiling at the time). However, this was an arbitration award and Blackwood is not arbitration eligible yet (though he will be next year).
You could also point to Philipp Grubauer, who signed a one-year deal with the Washington Capitals in 2017 worth $1.5 million. However, the Capitals were very close to the salary cap and I imagine the Devils want to sign Blackwood for longer than a year.
Juuse Saros is a pretty good starting point for the Blackwood negotiations. In 2018, he signed a three-year deal worth $1.5 million annually (1.89% of the cap ceiling at the time). That’s going to be the benchmark. Blackwood has played in 70 games while Saros, at the time, had only played in 48 games (though Saros did have a better save percentage at the time than Blackwood).
However, cap hit is not as relevant as the cap hit percentage. For example, paying someone $5 million in today’s NHL, with an $81.5 million cap ceiling, is not nearly as big of a deal as it was back in 2015-16, when the cap ceiling was $71.4 million. A common theme among young goalies is they’ll sign for about 3% to 3.5% of the cap ceiling at the time.
For those of you who stink at math (guilty!), let’s work through this. 1% of 81,500,000 is 815,000. Want an easy way to do this? Move the decimal point two spaces to the left. Bingo. 815,000 x 3 is $2,445,000. 815,000 x 3.5 is $2,825,000. So somewhere between $2.445 million and $2.825 million would make sense.
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After factoring in the pandemic, I’d say anywhere from $2 million to $3 million is a perfectly reasonable deal for Blackwood. A bridge deal benefits both sides because it allows the Devils to further evaluate if he’s a franchise goalie and it allows Blackwood to potentially get back on the market pretty quickly. I’m guessing he’ll get either a two-year or three-year deal.