Igor Shesterkin's case for an AAV of $12 million on his next contract

We all woke up Tuesday morning ready for the NHL’s opening night for the 2024-2025 season. Igor Shesterkin had other plans as Kevin Weekes reports (in a tweet that makes it look like Spongebob is riding Kevin Weeke’s head) he turned down an 8 year $11 million offer from the New York Rangers.

The deal would have made Shesterkin the highest-paid goaltender in NHL history, even though Shesterkin has reportedly repeatedly said he wants $12 million plus.

Currently, the highest-paid goaltender by average annual value is Sergei Bobrovsky with his $10 million-a-year deal he signed in the summer of 2019. “Highest paid goalie ever” might be a nice asterisk to have, but Shesterkin wants money and not some CapFriendly superlative record.

We hockey fans can sit here and be flabbergasted that someone would turn down $88 million and almost a decade’s worth of career security, but Shesterkin does have several things working in his favor for the quest for a higher payday.

Igor Shesterkin is going to be a very rich man when he signs a new deal

The first and most obvious is the cap is once again expected to go up next season. The cap will increase to $88 million this season which is its largest increase in a decade.

The cap could go up with the same increase to $92.5 million in 2025-2026 in what Commissioner Gary Bettman described as “very preliminary” talks. Aren’t the Rangers lucky Shesterkin’s new contract didn’t coincide with the “flat cap” of the past few years?

Second is that Shesterkin’s body of work obviously backs up an increased pay day. Since Shesterkin took over the starter’s reigns in the 2020-2021 season, he’s won a Vezina and earned a Hart Trophy nomination (both in 2021-2022).

Since Carey Price won the 2014-2015 Hart Trophy, only Shesterkin in 2020-2021 and Bobrovsky in 2016-2017 have been nominated as goaltenders. Former Rangers Hall of Fame goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, who Shesterkin serves as the heir for New York’s crease, was nominated in 2011-2012.

In Shesterkin’s four seasons as starter the Rangers have come oh so close to a cup final appearance in two of them. That 2021-2022 season was historic for Shesterkin and made it clear to New York that any path back to the cup final needed Shesterkin in net.

Alexandar Georgiev was proved expendable and shipped off to the Colorado Avalanche the next season.

The only year the Rangers did not make the playoffs was in his first year as a starter in 2020-2021 (if we include the 2020 qualifying round).

Shesterkin has posted a save percentage of over .910 in every NHL season and played 50 or more games the past three consecutive seasons. Everything Shesterkin has done since entering the Ranges crease has poised him to have his number one day hang in the Madison Square Garden rafters.

Can you think of any current NHL team whose specific goalie is as critical to their success as Shesterkin and the Rangers? The Tampa Bay Lightning with Andrei Vasilevskiy and perhaps the Nashville Predators with Jusse Saros.

The league has transitioned to an era of 1A and 1B tandems. Some teams with cup aspirations just look to get a goaltender who’s “just good enough” and let the skaters in front of him do the heavy lifting on their way to the cup.

Darcy Kuemper was the perfect example during his one-year Cup-winning stint with the Colorado Avalanche. The Toronto Maple Leafs enter every season as cup contenders but when’s the last time they didn’t have goaltending questions and an undisputed number one they could trust?

The third reason might be the only unlikely reason. Imagine for a second the NHL salary cap ceased to exist (cover your ears, Bettman). Without the cap holding them back the New York Rangers would be able to afford $12 million a year.

That isn’t even a question. Forbes lists their valuation at $2.65 billion with an operating income of $265 million. Even if fans complain about the $20 price tag for a beer at MSG it doesn’t stop them from buying them.

Other teams don’t have the revenue to write a $12 million check each year without breaking a sweat but the Rangers do. Money is, and will never be, an issue for the Rangers. Instead, the issue is spending money that complies with the NHL salary cap.

Adding to the fact that Alexis Lafrenière and K’Andre Miller are both restricted free agents next summer also complicates matters.

Does that mean the Rangers should ignore the cap? No. What it does suggest is that if Shesterkin is asking for $12 million from a team like the Ottawa Senators (the team with the NHL lowest operating income at $5.1 million, according to Forbes) $12 million would be a nonstarter or something that could potentially put the small market team in financial ruin.

Shesterkin and his agent know this isn’t the case. The New York Rangers front office knows this isn’t the case.

The only thing standing in the way is making it work is the NHL salary cap. Shesterkin still has this season on his deal, so the Rangers do have some time.

Peter Baugh of "The Athletic" reports the two sides won’t negotiate until after the season if a deal isn’t reached by the season opener.

Shesterkin’s resume suggests the Ranges might eventually have to budge and give him close to what he is asking for.

Then again they might wait to get some clarity on the next year’s cap increase, even if it’s not finalized. If the Rangers learned anything from Shesterkin’s rejection it’s that he’s not going to budge and he’s ready to play hardball.

The Rangers don’t have to look far to see an example of a long-term goalie contract gone wrong. The New York Islanders are still paying the buyout of former goaltender Rick DiPietro’s 15-year contract he signed back in 2006.

DiPietro’s career was largely derailed by injuries. Shesterkin has mostly managed to stay healthy, so maybe that’s a concern the Rangers front office has put to bed.