Brophy on Stanley Cup goalies: Net worth

If the last two Stanley Cup finals have taught us anything, it is there really isn’t a magical formula when it comes to how much money a team should designate toward its goaltending.

Think back to last season when rookie Antti Niemi stood at one end of the rink tending goal for the Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks in the final. Playing in his first full NHL season, Niemi was 26-7-4 in the regular season and then backstopped his team to its first championship since 1960-61 — all for $827,000. When he won his arbitration case for $2.75 million, the Blackhawks basically told him to get lost – exercising their option of walking away from the deal.

Niemi wound up signing a one-year deal worth $2 million with the San Jose Sharks. The 27-year-old Finn played superbly this season, getting the Sharks into the final four, and was rewarded with a four-year contract worth $15.2 million.

At the other end of the ice stood journeyman Michael Leighton who carried in his hip pocket a contract that paid him $600,000 for the season. Although his heroics did not win the Flyers the Cup, the team thought enough of him to re-sign him to a two-year deal valued at $3.1 million.

Many wondered if the Detroit Red Wings model of limiting the amount of money you spend on your goaltender while designating more cash to other positional players wasn’t the way to go. After all, if a rookie and a journeyman can get their teams into the final, why pay so much money to your goalie?

Welcome to the 2010-11 Stanley Cup final.

At one end of the rink you have Roberto Luongo of the Vancouver Canucks who signed a whopping 12-year contract worth $64 million. It looked like money well spent two games into this year’s championship series when the Canucks built a healthy 2-0 lead with a pair of home victories.

Upon hitting the road, however, things took a nasty turn. Luongo was lit up for 12 goals against in back-to-back losses in Boston and was finally replaced in Game 4 by backup Cory Schneider. Luongo, who is by far his team’s highest-paid player this season earning $10 million, is tagged as the starter for Game 5.

His opponent at the other end of the ice is Tim Thomas, a scrapper if there ever was one. The 37-year old didn’t even make it to the NHL as a regular until he was 32 and had played in the low minors (ECHL) as well as in Europe after a solid NCAA career. The late bloomer won the Vezina Trophy in 2008-09 and parlayed that into a four-year, $20 million contract. Only injured centre Marc Savard ($7 million) and defenceman Zdeno Chara ($7.5 million) earn more than Thomas’s $6 million this season.

So much for the Red Wings’ model. This year’s Stanley Cup will be awarded to a team that sunk a huge portion of its cap space to the guy who keeps the puck out of the net, proving there really is no perfect formula when it comes to designating pay to the goalie.

Reimer reward

Speaking of goalies and their salaries, the Toronto Maple Leafs have hitched their wagon to James Reimer, signing him to a three-year deal reportedly worth $5.4 million. Reimer earned $555,000 this season, becoming something of a local cult hero as he rose from the minors to record a solid 20-10-5 record for a team that failed to make the playoffs for the sixth straight season.

The smiling stopper had a decent 2.60 goals-against average and .921 save percentage. Did the Leafs overpay this 23-year old who really hasn’t been on the scene long enough to establish himself as a dependable big-league goaltender? Time will tell.

It is worth noting however, young goalies that burst on the scene as rookie have faced struggles in the ensuing seasons. Andrew Raycroft was named the NHL’s rookie of the year in 2003-04 and later tied the Leafs franchise record for wins in a season with 37, yet he has not been a No. 1 goalie in the league since. Steve Mason of the Columbus Blue Jackets was the NHL’s top rookie in 2008-09, but has been inconsistent since, although most would agree he still has a huge upside.

There’s just something about the affable Reimer that makes me hope he’s a success.

Conn Smythe leader

At this stage of the final, Thomas is the leading candidate to be named MVP of the post-season. There is even a sense that should the Canucks come back to win the Stanley Cup, the Bruins goaltender would still be judged as most valuable player in the playoffs. Obviously that depends on how well he plays the rest of the way.

Only five players have ever won the Conn Smythe Trophy in spite of the fact their team lost in the final and four of those were goalies. Roger Crozier of the Detroit Red Wings was the first in 1965-66 followed by Glenn Hall of the St. Louis Blues in 1967-68, Ron Hextall of the Philadelphia Flyers in 1986-87 and Jean-Sebastien Giguere of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 2002-03. Flyers winger Reggie Leach is the only skater to play for the losing team in the final and win the Conn Smythe, turning the trick in 1975-76.