Walker Shesterkin Aiming for Historic Contract; Rejects 8-Year/$88M Deal ($11M AAV)

[Ozzy]

6 hours ago, Phil said:

This is going to be the most regrettable deal in Rangers' history before the ink even dries on his signature.

 

Please frame this!

 

I still think we've seen his best...it's all down hill from here. 

[BrooksBurner]

18 minutes ago, jsm7302 said:

This mentality makes me sick. I prefer the team before self mantra. Reset the goalie market and aiming to be highest paid ranger ever is just gross. How about winning a Stanley cup. Let this guy walk.

Don’t forget Drury went cut throat on Shesty’s buddy Buch. Lots of high paid Rangers here. There’s no allegience and there really shouldn’t be because that is not the culture which has been established here.

[Pete]

22 minutes ago, Br4d said:

 

You can't change the projections until they meet NHL ice-time and the player's true quality is revealed.  They may suck but they may also shine and teams that never try to figure that out wind up with cap-bloated vets all up and down the roster.

 

It's part of the trap of a team that is aging in place at 2 wins away from a SCF.

OK?

 

The point is you would need all of them to pop for the offense to be highly functional, and that's just not going to happen. 

[Phil]

Just now, BrooksBurner said:

Don’t forget Drury went cut throat on Shesty’s buddy Buch. Lots of high paid Rangers here. There’s no allegience and there really shouldn’t be because that is not the culture which has been established here.

 

Too bad, so sad. Go play with him. Let the Blues pay obscene money to a fucking goalie.

[Pete]

48 minutes ago, BrooksBurner said:

 

He made the Finals, so reasonably close?

 

I assure you there's more high paid elite skaters who haven't sniffed a Cup, than elite goalies.

He made the finals in the COVID bubble. 

 

He played 25 games during the regular season and was a .901 goalie. He was a .924 goalie in the playoffs, 6th in the NHL with stats similar to Varlamov who was a $5M goalie at the time. 

 

That was not the performance of a 10.5 million dollar goalie. 

[BrooksBurner]

1 hour ago, Phil said:

 

Too bad, so sad. Go play with him. Let the Blues pay obscene money to a fucking goalie.

It’d be like you banning @Pete to hf boards, and @Albatrosss would go there too unless you give him mod status

[Valriera]

This is such a stupid idea. 

[Br4d]

13 hours ago, Pete said:

OK?

 

The point is you would need all of them to pop for the offense to be highly functional, and that's just not going to happen. 

 

The Rangers need to replace Panarin, Trouba and likely Kreider by '26.

 

By then Laf should be fully engaged and driving a line.  Perreault should be done with his college play and in the NHL.  We'll have to see on Zibanejad who currently is held back by Kreider as much as helped by him at 5v5.

 

The young guys will prove out or fail, likely not all landing in the same bucket.

[Pete]

1 hour ago, Br4d said:

 

The Rangers need to replace Panarin, Trouba and likely Kreider by '26.

 

By then Laf should be fully engaged and driving a line.  Perreault should be done with his college play and in the NHL.  We'll have to see on Zibanejad who currently is held back by Kreider as much as helped by him at 5v5.

 

The young guys will prove out or fail, likely not all landing in the same bucket.

 

 

Which is why this contract doesn't make sense. They're not going to be competitive (mostly because as Zib regresses they have no first line center on the team right now or in the pipeline) until the contract is half dead. 

 

Then they're going to be trying to ride a 33-year-old goalie... Guess how old Price was when he played his last season?

[BreakawayMachine]

Mark my words, Igor is going to the Avalanche this off-season.

[Pete]

1 hour ago, BreakawayMachine said:

Mark my words, Igor is going to the Avalanche this off-season.

Not likely if they plan on keeping Raantanen. 

[BrooksBurner]

3 hours ago, Br4d said:

 

The Rangers need to replace Panarin, Trouba and likely Kreider by '26.

 

By then Laf should be fully engaged and driving a line.  Perreault should be done with his college play and in the NHL.  We'll have to see on Zibanejad who currently is held back by Kreider as much as helped by him at 5v5.

 

The young guys will prove out or fail, likely not all landing in the same bucket.

I find this to be more of a “keep Igor” argument. They will have young cheap guys (Perreault, Othmann) they hope grow into replacing the expensive top 6 guys. The only need for saving money on Igor in the next 3-4 seasons would be to hire more [overpaid] mercenaries in free agency. I find that the usual problem with the complaints about paying Igor, is that it’s often accompanied with an even worse plan (or no plan) to utilize the money.

 

So if you don’t sign Igor, who is getting the money? Lafreniere is likely getting the money whether Igor is here or not, so you don’t have to dump Igor to enable that. Are we trying to plot out having money for Perreault’s 2nd contract if he’s a star? That wouldn’t be for 4 seasons. That’s too far off to be concerned by trying to save ~$4-5m on a goalie.

[Pete]

29 minutes ago, BrooksBurner said:

I find this to be more of a “keep Igor” argument. They will have young cheap guys (Perreault, Othmann) they hope grow into replacing the expensive top 6 guys. The only need for saving money on Igor in the next 3-4 seasons would be to hire more [overpaid] mercenaries in free agency. I find that the usual problem with the complaints about paying Igor, is that it’s often accompanied with an even worse plan (or no plan) to utilize the money.

 

So if you don’t sign Igor, who is getting the money? Lafreniere is likely getting the money whether Igor is here or not, so you don’t have to dump Igor to enable that. Are we trying to plot out having money for Perreault’s 2nd contract if he’s a star? That wouldn’t be for 4 seasons. That’s too far off to be concerned by trying to save ~$4-5m on a goalie.

Remove the focus from the names involved.

 

You don't need to invest 13 to 14 million in the goaltending position which is what will happen if Igor is making upwards of 12. So just by having that carved out you are literally stealing money from positions that will make you better five on five. 

 

You don't need a plan today on what you're going to do with that money. You know you're eventually going to need it for something else, so spending it just because you have it isn't wise.

 

The team will plateau until players leave (Panarin, Kreider, Zib eventually) and then it will get worse because there is only one player who's projected to be a difference maker...Perrault.

 

This team will be dipping into free agency whether anyone likes it or not, because they always do. So unless they can stack first round picks by trading away guys in the last year of their deal, and those first round picks make the NHL in short order.... There will be free agents coming. 

[BrooksBurner]

17 minutes ago, Pete said:

Remove the focus from the names involved.

 

You don't need to invest 13 to 14 million in the goaltending position which is what will happen if Igor is making upwards of 12. So just by having that carved out you are literally stealing money from positions that will make you better five on five. 

 

You don't need a plan today on what you're going to do with that money. You know you're eventually going to need it for something else, so spending it just because you have it isn't wise.

 

The team will plateau until players leave (Panarin, Kreider, Zib eventually) and then it will get worse because there is only one player who's projected to be a difference maker...Perrault.

 

This team will be dipping into free agency whether anyone likes it or not, because they always do. So unless they can stack first round picks by trading away guys in the last year of their deal, and those first round picks make the NHL in short order.... There will be free agents coming. 

 

You do not need a detailed plan, but you need a rough plan. If a team has a wave of youngsters with a reasonable probability of being high cap figures within the next 3-4 years, that's a solid plan and a good reason not to get into paying big on a goalie for 8. Do the Rangers have that? It doesn't look like it to me. When you don't have an idea how that money is going to get used, it will almost certainly wind up being wasted on something worse. You are already alluding to about dipping into free agency because "that's what they always do", and I agree that would probably be their plan. That's a no from me dawg.

 

I agree with the idea of not paying a goalie big money, and I've said that for a long time, but the much worse plan is going into free agency with that extra 4-5 million dollars and attempting to sign whatever impact player happens to be available at the time. That is almost certainly going to lead to an overpay for a skater who will ultimately underperform under the bright lights. For every Panarin you get in free agency, and he's only worth his contract in the regular season, there's dozens of Brad Richards and Scott Gomezes and Chris Drurys and Wade Reddens. Additionally, they might completely strike out on whatever mid-goalie they replace Shesterkin with. It's quite simply a bad plan. So you need a plan and it needs to be better than the one you are walking away from.

 

The only way not signing Igor made sense, in my opinion, was to start unloading this summer. Trade Igor. Trade Kreider. Fill the cupboards with young players/top prospects who have a better projection to being high end/high cap players in that 3-4 year window. Unfortunately the ship has sailed. The best chance for this team to be competitive now through the next 3-4 years is to have an elite goalie. The decisions to this point have made it this way. For better or worse.

[Phil]

2 hours ago, BreakawayMachine said:

Mark my words, Igor is going to the Avalanche this off-season.

 

Cool. Let them stupidly pay a goalie $12 million, then, and lose Rantanen in the process.

[BrooksBurner]

17 minutes ago, Phil said:

 

Cool. Let them stupidly pay a goalie $12 million, then, and lose Rantanen in the process.

Yeah, and this would be stupid for them to do since they currently have skaters who are worth spending high end money on for the next many years. Unlike the Rangers.

[RangersIn7]

If they aren’t willing to meet his price, which they probably shouldn’t, then they need to move him.

 

Just do it. 

[Pete]

43 minutes ago, BrooksBurner said:

 

You do not need a detailed plan, but you need a rough plan. If a team has a wave of youngsters with a reasonable probability of being high cap figures within the next 3-4 years, that's a solid plan and a good reason not to get into paying big on a goalie for 8. Do the Rangers have that? It doesn't look like it to me. When you don't have an idea how that money is going to get used, it will almost certainly wind up being wasted on something worse. You are already alluding to about dipping into free agency because "that's what they always do", and I agree that would probably be their plan. That's a no from me dawg.

 

I agree with the idea of not paying a goalie big money, and I've said that for a long time, but the much worse plan is going into free agency with that extra 4-5 million dollars and attempting to sign whatever impact player happens to be available at the time. That is almost certainly going to lead to an overpay for a skater who will ultimately underperform under the bright lights. For every Panarin you get in free agency, and he's only worth his contract in the regular season, there's dozens of Brad Richards and Scott Gomezes and Chris Drurys and Wade Reddens. Additionally, they might completely strike out on whatever mid-goalie they replace Shesterkin with. It's quite simply a bad plan. So you need a plan and it needs to be better than the one you are walking away from.

 

The only way not signing Igor made sense, in my opinion, was to start unloading this summer. Trade Igor. Trade Kreider. Fill the cupboards with young players/top prospects who have a better projection to being high end/high cap players in that 3-4 year window. Unfortunately the ship has sailed. The best chance for this team to be competitive now through the next 3-4 years is to have an elite goalie. The decisions to this point have made it this way. For better or worse.

I'm okay if the plan is just to have cap flexibility. 

 

This team has spent too many years being a cap team with zero flexibility to strike while the iron is hot. We saw this happen in real time when the Rangers didn't have the ability to add an impact free agent because they couldn't unload Trouba. 

 

There is literally no reason for them to give in to Igor's demands and spend the last 5 years of his contract being a mid team.

 

I've used this analogy before, but I'm not going to buy $1,000 hoodie because I'm cold today. A hoodie is still just a hoodie. I'd rather be cold today and keep the $1,000 for something I might need down the line. 

 

As far as dipping into free agency, I'd rather debate around the reality of it even if it's not what I want. It doesn't matter what we want, it only matters what's going to happen. And they are going to add in free agency, so they might as well be equipped with the cap space to do it. 

Edited September 26 by Pete

[Br4d]

42 minutes ago, BrooksBurner said:

I find this to be more of a “keep Igor” argument. They will have young cheap guys (Perreault, Othmann) they hope grow into replacing the expensive top 6 guys. The only need for saving money on Igor in the next 3-4 seasons would be to hire more [overpaid] mercenaries in free agency. I find that the usual problem with the complaints about paying Igor, is that it’s often accompanied with an even worse plan (or no plan) to utilize the money.

 

So if you don’t sign Igor, who is getting the money? Lafreniere is likely getting the money whether Igor is here or not, so you don’t have to dump Igor to enable that. Are we trying to plot out having money for Perreault’s 2nd contract if he’s a star? That wouldn’t be for 4 seasons. That’s too far off to be concerned by trying to save ~$4-5m on a goalie.

 

Laf, Miller (and the Rangers will need a #2 LD at least if he goes), Cuylle ('26-'27 timeline), Schneider ('25-'26 timeline), Panarin (no idea how this one works out), Kreider (ditto).

 

I think the notion of paying Igor top dollar will really tie the Ranger's hands when they need flexibility.

 

 

 

[Phil]

If you keep Igor, you are 100% losing at least one roster player as early as next season. The math here just does not work any other way, even by conservative estimates.

[RJWantsTheCup]

Unless the Rangers are totally out of it at the trade deadline and he gets traded I totally see Shesterkin being re-signed.

If it's the right move or not I'm not so sure.

[BrooksBurner]

24 minutes ago, Phil said:

If you keep Igor, you are 100% losing at least one roster player as early as next season. The math here just does not work any other way, even by conservative estimates.

Who?

[LindG1000]

1 hour ago, Phil said:

 

Cool. Let them stupidly pay a goalie $12 million, then, and lose Rantanen in the process.

I make this trade. No blinking.

 

Rantanen is a hulking shitbeast. 

[LindG1000]

31 minutes ago, Phil said:

If you keep Igor, you are 100% losing at least one roster player as early as next season. The math here just does not work any other way, even by conservative estimates.

More specifically, a roster player you don't want to lose. Not just Trouba.

[Phil]

1 hour ago, BrooksBurner said:

Yeah, and this would be stupid for them to do since they currently have skaters who are worth spending high end money on for the next many years. Unlike the Rangers.

 

Which is also not a reason to pay a goalie $12 million.