(8) Nikolai Khabibulin v. (9) Antti Niemi
by Scott Reynolds on Mar 22, 2011 10:26 AM MDT
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PrintRick DiPietro waltzed through the first round of the Not-So-Sweet Sixteen, and his second-round match-up will end up being against a fellow goaltender. Nikolai Khabibulin and Antti Niemi are both pretty egregious mistakes, mostly because both were asinine from the minute the deals were signed. Both the Oilers and Sharks bet big money and significant term on goaltenders based on short-term performance rather than their long-term results. We'll take a look at each player after the jump.
Nikolai Khabibulin
Relentless incompetence. Tyler was talking about management then, and boy oh boy, not much has changed. We all knew this was terrible at the time, and if we didn't, it sure does look terrible now. The Extreme DUI conviction. The string of injuries. The poor performances married to media members who chant MVP whenever Khabibulin touches the puck. The 35+ clause that makes the cap hit stick like glue. If he retires, it's still there. If he's in the minors, it's still there. If he's bought out, it's still there. The only saving grace for this deal is that it will one day be over.
Antti Niemi
It's hard to understand the Sharks giving this contract to Niemi so soon after throwing Evgeni Nabokov on the scrap heap. It looked for all the world like this summer was going to be the beginning of Doug Wilson following the "cheap in goal" model, but when he saw what strong goaltending could look like - Niemi's been very good this season - he jumped at the chance to lock up the goalie providing it. Tragically, Niemi's long-term history doesn't suggest he'll be providing it over the long haul. His EV save percentage in the NHL is slightly above average at .921 over 2506 shots, basically one good season and one poor one. His lack of success in other leagues makes it seem likely that the Sharks won't end up with anything better than average netminding, and a 3.8M cap hit is an awful lot to pay for average.
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by Derek Zona on Mar 22, 2011 10:31 AM MDT reply actions 1 recs
Niemi at least has a chance to provide the value his deal says he’s worth. I don’t believe Khabi can at this point.
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I wouldn’t have even considered Niemi to be honest… he is a Stanley Cup champion and lately it seems that if you are Finn, you are destined to be a great goalie. I suppose any goalie signing past 4 years is considered poor?
You know who else is a Stanley Cup champion? Nikolai Khabibulin.
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by Scott Reynolds on Mar 22, 2011 10:38 AM MDT up reply actions
As to long goalie contracts being poor, I do generally think that’s the case, although there are some long contracts that I like just fine. Roberto Luongo, for example, won’t be making an appearance in this tournament.
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by Scott Reynolds on Mar 22, 2011 10:42 AM MDT up reply actions
I don’t see how it’s close, really, but that might be my Oilers bias: cap hit’s essentially identical, Niemi’s a better goalie, Khabibulin’s the 35+ thing going on (and the impending jail sentence)…Niemi’s is longer, but he seems likely to be a league average starter for that term. What do you think Khabibulin will be doing in 2012-2013?
by sarcasticidealist on Mar 22, 2011 11:30 AM MDT reply actions
I barely even think the Niemi deal is bad. Only because goalies have gone for cheaper lately. He is at least a legit starting goalie with .917 SV% ranking 24th for over 10 games played and 20th for over 15 games. As i recall he had a slow start that maybe knocked him down that far. Only slightly above Niemi sv% are Vokoun($5MM), Ward($6.3MM), Backstrom($6MM), Fleury ($5MM) so I expect to see all on here. I am stunned there are 7 contracts higher seeded than Khabibulin, and no more worse than Niemi. Are almost all of the players in this tournament goalies?
Spoiler Alert! There are no more goalies in the tournament. As I’m sure you know (having read the post), I’m not a fan of basing my analysis of goaltenders on one year’s results. Niemi’s been very good this season, but his previous results aren’t so encouraging. Vokoun, Ward, and Backstrom have a longer track record of sustained success, so I’d be fine with them getting paid (and Vokoun’s contract is up at the end of this season, so that one wouldn’t qualify even if it was truly terrible). Fleury made my short list, but I decided not to include him.
The biggest fanana of the Havana Bananas.
by Scott Reynolds on Mar 22, 2011 12:12 PM MDT up reply actions
Ward barely has a longer track record and makes twice the amount.
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
I don’t think either of those things is accurate. 3.8 doubled is 7.6, and while Ward is making a lot (6.3), that’s something of an exaggeration. In terms of experience, Niemi has faced 2506 shots at EV in his NHL career, whereas Ward has faced 8301, and 4697 in the last three seasons. His career EV Sv% is close to average (.918), but he’s been quite good over the last three seasons (.924), and considering how young he was to begin his career, I think the latter results will be more indicative of what to expect in the future.
The biggest fanana of the Havana Bananas.
by Scott Reynolds on Mar 22, 2011 4:16 PM MDT up reply actions
Except Cam Ward signed his deal in September of 2009, right after his first big season. If we are going to evaluate/compare the contracts shouldn’t we look at their time of the signing then?
If we are going to forgive Ward for his earlier seasons and only look to his recent ones because of his age, shouldn’t we do the same for Niemi who is only 7 months older?
That Ward contract looks like shit compared to the Niemi one.
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
That’s not what this is about. This is about evaluating which contract looks worse going forward. I agree that Ward’s contract looked like a huge mistake when it was signed, but it’s “status” has improved substantially since that date.
The biggest fanana of the Havana Bananas.
by Scott Reynolds on Mar 23, 2011 9:41 AM MDT up reply actions
That’s essentially the point though. Niemi is still relatively young, has now parts of 2 solid NHL seasons behind him including his rookie year in the NHL last year.
Ward may have a slightly longer track record at this performance level, but I don’t think it’s worth $2.5mil more per season.
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
I’ve only done one other post so far. There will be a match-up every day.
The biggest fanana of the Havana Bananas.
by Scott Reynolds on Mar 22, 2011 12:13 PM MDT up reply actions
Nikolai Khabibulin
Or Corn on the Khab as I (not sure why) call him is waaaay worse. Niemi has played well this season, and while his contract is maybe unreasonable, I wouldn’t call it terrible. Khab’s though is just bad.
eh?
The fix is in
It’s not even close.
Not sure what your issue is with the Niemi deal. Yes, you admit your bias about small sample sizes but Niemi won the Cup last year (beating/sweeping the Sharks along the way in what was beyond the crease a pretty even series) and is playing well for the Sharks this year. They’ve seen enough during their one-year trial marriage that they’re satisfied they’ve found the replacement for/upgrade on Nabokov, and at a way lower ticket.
When you say “one good year and one bad one”, which one was the bad one? The year he won the Stanley Cup?? He went 26-7-4 with a 2.25 GAA but “only” a .912 Sv%, so I’m guessing your talking about that one. Oh, and just .910 in the post-season, when he won those 16 games …
You talk of league-average goaltending. Check out the highest paid goalies in the NHL this year, go to the middle of the top 30 and you get:
15. Pascal Leclaire $3.8 MM
16. Nikolai Khabibulin $3.75 MM
… and while the Leclaire deal has the virtue of expiring, it nonetheless expresses a market value for an average #1 goalie, and the Niemi deal is right there. I’d argue that as a goalie Niemi’s lower bar is “average” at this point, and he’s still trending upwards. The Vantaa native is not exactly following a traditional career curve.
The Khabibulin deal, on the other hand, is terrible. It comes with its own sarcophagus in the form of the over-35 clause. Niemi at least can be seen as a solution to San Jose’s goaltending question, whereas Khabibulin hasn’t done a whole lot besides cause problems. The legal trouble wasn’t predictable but the injuries were. The poor performance for a goalie of that age isn’t exactly unprecedented either. With two years yet to run he’s in the way of the developing young goalies, whereas Niemi IS a developing young goalie, and a good one.
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"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
I deliberately held off voting until I posted this, then cast my (anti-)Khabibulin ballot and sure enough the vote is at 133-11. That score reminds me of some of those first round games in the NCAA basketball tourney, and I ain’t talking the 8 v 9 seeds here.
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by Bruce McCurdy on Mar 22, 2011 2:06 PM MDT up reply actions
Well Bruce, you put Niemi winning the cup as a defense to his new contract, but the fact is that the year after winning the cup he only got 2 million.
Furthermore last season his ES sv% was .914, which was not really a good one.
That said, he has done well this season. And if he can continue this season’s results, then yes he might belong with the likes of Hiller/Bryzgalov
without honor, victory is hollow
He got 2.75m from an arbitrator on a RFA deal. His 2m as a UFA had as much to do with being made a UFA in August after a lot of teams had signed goalies as it did with his market value.
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His market value is what he just signed for, not the one year stopgap contract signed under some duress. He kind of fell into San Jose’s lap, they rolled the dice on the cheap despite having two guys already under contract, he won the job, they now see him as a long term solution and are paying him accordingly.
Will SJ’s goaltending budget be higher in 2011-12 than 2010-11? Not much. Than 2009-10? Not at all. The decision they’ve taken can be defended on economic grounds.
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"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
by Bruce McCurdy on Mar 22, 2011 4:42 PM MDT up reply actions
Oh snap! He won the Cup! And he has wins! Brent Sopel also had 16 playoff wins last year, but is that really a good gauge for whether or not he’s a good defenseman? As to the market value for an average #1 goalie (although the “#1” designation here is your addition, and Niemi hasn’t actually been average if we limit the sample to just starters), I’d suggest that the new deals for Jimmy Howard and Craig Anderson suggest that Niemi is veering to the high end of that market for sure. Interesting though that the two guys you have as examples above (Leclaire and Khabibulin) are overpaid millstones who were paid based on short run of strong results but who subsequently faded. That doesn’t mean that it will happen with Niemi, but it certainly could. As such, I’m not sure why you think Niemi’s floor is average. He’s only outperformed “average” in the NHL for one season.
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by Scott Reynolds on Mar 22, 2011 2:29 PM MDT up reply actions
Well I woulda cited whatever two guys came up at 15 & 16, but it was indeed interesting that it happened to be those two guys, and pretty much bang on the Niemi Number. You can take whatever lesson you want from that, from “See? $3.8 million dollar deals on goalies are stupid!” – I’m being facetious here – to “See? Niemi is a better goalie than those bums and better value for dollar!” to somwhere in between, which is where I am. To me it’s less about who they are and more about their numbers establishing the middle of the payscale of #1 netminders. Niemi in that range doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. Much more defensible than the Khabi contract.
That said, to characterize Khabibulin’s career as a short run of strong results seems harsh. I assume you’re talking about what happened solely during the life of his previous contract rather than his career as a whole, cuz he was a pretty good goalie for a pretty long time. His last contract was a bad one, and the new one is proving to be not a whole lot better. He did take a pretty major pay cut when he came to the Oilers, although I will quickly agree with anybody who interjects “not major enough!” Particualrly egregious IMO is the term. If he was 27 like Antti Niemi or even almost 30 like Craig Anderson I would feel differently about four years, but at 35+ that’s just too big of a risk on multiple fronts.
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"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
by Bruce McCurdy on Mar 22, 2011 4:57 PM MDT up reply actions
Yeah, I was referring to Khabibulin’s post-lockout record when I was referring to his longer term results. Also worth noting that we agree that Khabibulin’s is worse than Niemi’s now, and if we compare them both as of the date signed, Khabby’s is much, much worse.
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by Scott Reynolds on Mar 22, 2011 5:06 PM MDT up reply actions
Much, much, MUCH worse.
Writer for The Cult of Hockey, The Copper & Blue, and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries
"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
by Bruce McCurdy on Mar 22, 2011 5:17 PM MDT up reply actions
Think of it, we could have signed Niemi on the cheap this summer if we didn’t still have $11.25 MM tied up in the ’Bulin Wall.
Writer for The Cult of Hockey, The Copper & Blue, and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries
"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
by Bruce McCurdy on Mar 22, 2011 5:18 PM MDT up reply actions
Recognizing that the seedings are a big wonky, I did pick Niemi as the third-worst goalie contract in the league (behind DiPietro and Khabibulin). Which ’tender would you have at third-worst?
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by Scott Reynolds on Mar 22, 2011 2:45 PM MDT up reply actions
There are some bad ones out there: Miikka Kiprusoff is bad value, Kari Lehtonen was an overpay, Steve Mason’s is terrible and although they are ending, Giguere and Leclaire had two of the worst out there and they are still in existence.
Tim Thomas was also an incredibly risky and unnecessary one that could still blow up in Boston’s face big time, although having a record setting season right now makes that a tough case to make. Oh yeah, and Michael Leighton’s was terrible, too. And Dan Ellis’ seemed fine at the time, but he’s made his pretty terrible.
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After reading all the posts up till now I’m sticking by my original point.. the Niemi deal really isn’t that bad. In fact, if the Oilers signed him for 4 years at that rate instead of Khabibulin you can’t tell me the blogosphere would be up in arms. Didn’t Craig Anderson just sign a similar deal?
I guess it depends what you mean by “the blogosphere” but I’m confident that several folks wouldn’t like the deal. I’d be hard against. Gabe would. CG would. Derek’s comment above suggests he would. That said, I thought the Craig Anderson deal was fine, mostly because I think Craig Anderson is a significantly better goalie (and the difference between 3.8 and 3.2 is non-trivial).
The biggest fanana of the Havana Bananas.
by Scott Reynolds on Mar 22, 2011 4:33 PM MDT up reply actions
What are you basing that on? Career save percentage?
You certainly can’t be basing it on the current season, near the end of which both of those guys signed their new four-year deals.
Writer for The Cult of Hockey, The Copper & Blue, and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries
"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
by Bruce McCurdy on Mar 22, 2011 4:37 PM MDT up reply actions
Anderson? Yeah, his longer term performance, and more specifically, his EV Sv% performance over the last four seasons (which is .926).
The biggest fanana of the Havana Bananas.
by Scott Reynolds on Mar 22, 2011 5:15 PM MDT up reply actions
I think it’ll be interesting to revisit this pair of signings in a year or two.
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"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
by Bruce McCurdy on Mar 22, 2011 5:19 PM MDT up reply actions
A lot of those don’t seem as bad to me (right now). Ellis, Leighton, Gigeure, and Leclaire are all short term problems and the first two are pretty inexpensive. Mason’s is awful given the leverage CBJ should have had in negotiations, but it’s less money and term than Niemi’s. I actually like Lehtonen, though Dallas takes on a lot of injury risk with him. Thomas has been consistently good so I have a hard time including him but age is obviously a big risk. Kiprusoff could have been a good inclusion though.
The biggest fanana of the Havana Bananas.
by Scott Reynolds on Mar 22, 2011 4:28 PM MDT up reply actions
Nikolai Khabibulin’s contract is – not to sound like too much of a homer here – the worst thing ever to happen in the history of the world. Niemi pales in comparison.
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by Benjamin Massey on Mar 22, 2011 8:21 PM MDT reply actions
No, if you were a homer, you’d be voting Khabibulin for the Remax Outstanding Player Outstanding Result 82 games in a row. You’re not a homer. Just a realist.
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"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
by Bruce McCurdy on Mar 22, 2011 11:08 PM MDT up reply actions
Pretty sure, based upon the fact that this is an Oilers blog and how we all feel about the subject, i think we can just skip right to the end and declare Khabi the winner (/loser).
But then of course, Scott wont have 2 weeks of material to write about.
Insert Witty Comment Here
What are the terms of 35+ clause? If the oilers stuff him in the AHL like Redden of the Rangers, will it not similarly free up team cap space?
Nope. They get a whopping $100,000 of cap relief if they stash him in the minors.
The biggest fanana of the Havana Bananas.
by Scott Reynolds on Mar 26, 2011 10:26 AM MDT up reply actions
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