Backstrom 5 yrs $46 mil

[Brewin Flames]

Capitals re-sign Nicklas Backstrom to 5-year, $46 million deal

 

The Washington Capitals have set up the scenario for Nicklas Backstrom to spend his entire career with the franchise, giving him a new five-year, $46 million deal.

 

The center was in the final year of 10-year, $67 million contract. He had been negotiating a new deal without an agent, saying that he has a "good enough relationship with the organization where we can be honest and talk."

 

Backstrom, 32, now has the second-highest average annual value on the team behind Alex Ovechkin. Ovechkin's contract expires after this season.

 

 

He is only one of two Capitals players to have 900 points (908), along with Ovechkin (1,255).

 

Backstrom has been a model of consistency since starting with Washington as a 20-year-old in 2007-08. He is the Capitals' all-time assists leader with 668, recording more than 50 assists in six straight seasons.

 

With Ovechkin, he suffered through crushing playoff disappointments before the Capitals broke through to win the Stanley Cup in 2017-18. Backstrom had 23 points in 20 playoff games during that Stanley Cup run.

 

This season, Backstrom has nine goals and 26 assists. He has 240 goals in his career.

[yave1964]

  They are paying Backstrom for what he has done, not what he is expected to do. Too much for too long for a 32 year old center who has slipped a bit in recent years. It is a young mans game, a few years ago at his age, sure, but the game has gotten so extraordinarily fast that when you start to lose a step the end comes quick. He will not perform up to his current standards for the last two years or so of his deal pretty much guaranteed.  

 

  That said, this deal pretty much makes Holtby moving on a foregone conclusion which makes sense, teams that overpay for goaltending seldom win and with Samsonov looking ready to take over the net it is now a virtual certainty that Holtby will be playing elsewhere next season.

[Mad Dog]

6 minutes ago, yave1964 said:

  They are paying Backstrom for what he has done, not what he is expected to do. Too much for too long for a 32 year old center who has slipped a bit in recent years. It is a young mans game, a few years ago at his age, sure, but the game has gotten so extraordinarily fast that when you start to lose a step the end comes quick. He will not perform up to his current standards for the last two years or so of his deal pretty much guaranteed.  

 

  That said, this deal pretty much makes Holtby moving on a foregone conclusion which makes sense, teams that overpay for goaltending seldom win and with Samsonov looking ready to take over the net it is now a virtual certainty that Holtby will be playing elsewhere next season.

 

Yeah, I tend to agree.  I don't know the Capitals' cap situation, but I can't imagine they would find the way to keep Holtby.  Perhaps exactly *because* they feel Samsonov is ready, they signed Backstrom to this deal, which, in my mind, is a bit inflated.  But like you said, this deal reflects more on his current value as opposed to the future.

[radoran]

16 hours ago, yave1964 said:

teams that overpay for goaltending seldom win

 

Saw an interesting discussion on TSN (via YouTube) about "the $10M goalie" - gonna start a thread on it

 

Basically, with all the steps they have taken to increase scoring the value of the goalie has dropped considerably.

 

The two $10M cap hit goalies (Price, Bobrovsky) have 2.87/.907 (Price) and 3.29/.896 (Bob). Their teams are 7 points (MTL) and 1 point (FLA) out of the Wild Card spot.

 

Of the $5M+ goalies, it could be argued that only Rask (2.27/.925) and Hellebuyck (2.57/.923) are pulling their cap weight with Bishop (2.23/.930) at $4.9M coming in just under $5M.

[yave1964]

@radoran

 

As bad as the Wings are we do have some talent in the pipeline and EASILY our biggest black hole is in net.Howard is the worst regular goalie in the game, Bernier is a middling backup at best and there is nobody in the system that I can see ever being an NHL goalie. There are ways to address this, I hope we trade for Georgiev who is a fine prospect being forced out of New York by a better one and out of the very real possibility that he will be taken by Seattle in the expansion draft if he isn't dealt. My biggest fear is signing Holtby who is a solid goalie but would probably come in at or near 9 million per year which is way too much for a goalie. Dont get me wrong, given a choice between Georgiev or Holtby I take Holtby every day of the week, but at a difference of 6 million or so in salary with so many other holes to fill I hope someone else such as the Sabres, Senators or Wild go after him. A team simply cannot afford to give that kind of money to a tender.

[radoran]

2 minutes ago, yave1964 said:

My biggest fear is signing Holtby who is a solid goalie but would probably come in at or near 9 million per year which is way too much for a goalie.

 

IMO, whoever signs Holtby to the inevitable 7 year, $9M deal will regret it by Y3 if not sooner...

[Keep Your Stick on the Ice]

On 1/15/2020 at 8:47 AM, yave1964 said:

@radoran

 

As bad as the Wings are we do have some talent in the pipeline and EASILY our biggest black hole is in net.Howard is the worst regular goalie in the game, Bernier is a middling backup at best and there is nobody in the system that I can see ever being an NHL goalie. There are ways to address this, I hope we trade for Georgiev who is a fine prospect being forced out of New York by a better one and out of the very real possibility that he will be taken by Seattle in the expansion draft if he isn't dealt. My biggest fear is signing Holtby who is a solid goalie but would probably come in at or near 9 million per year which is way too much for a goalie. Dont get me wrong, given a choice between Georgiev or Holtby I take Holtby every day of the week, but at a difference of 6 million or so in salary with so many other holes to fill I hope someone else such as the Sabres, Senators or Wild go after him. A team simply cannot afford to give that kind of money to a tender.

Totally agree the wings need a solid goalie now more than ever. Maybe they ought to take that Russian kid 4th overall or make a trade. I sure as hell hope they don’t sign Holtby though.