Hello and welcome back my Salary Cap-friendlies! We haven't really touched on goaltenders too much in Capped and there's sort of a reason for that. Outside of Sergei Bobrovsky they mostly earn salaries and off the top of my head, the last sort of bigger trade that occurred with a goaltender was Marc-Andre Fleury from Chicago to Minnesota. There are offseason signings that of course take play, but in-season sometimes there's not much to discuss. I will say though, through many hard years of fantasy hockey there are always two things that take place when it comes to goaltending.

One, there is always the "good" goaltender that for no explicable reason can't find his net; think Jacob Markstrom last season. Two seasons ago, Markstrom was arguably a top five goaltender in the NHL, then for whatever reason his play just took an about turn last year. The second is that there is almost always a goaltending injury that forces a team to make a trade, and oddly enough for reasons we'll never know, this seems to always take place a week before the trade deadline. This season sure, we have the Andrei Vasilevskiy injury but that was before the season got underway. There are other injuries as well (one we'll get to here) like Igor Shesterkin, this is something that happens in the world of fantasy hockey.

I wrote about goaltending last season over at GoaliePost.com (Excellent fantasy resource, now with an incredible free app!), and it was great because I was able to highlight different goaltending scenarios around the league twice a week. Sometimes the stars align because we have to dive down the rabbit hole of goaltending in Edmonton, AB. This might have been in the NHL news lately. Could have seen it, maybe.

Jack Campbell – G – Edmonton – 31 years old
Contract: $5M – Three years remaining – M-NTC

For those new to this article, hello. My name's Andrew and I talk about all things salary cap life and love. Inspiring NHL, GM huh? Well hold on there little Jimmy, before you sit in that big armchair and make important player decisions let me give you a piece of free advice. It's probably not a good idea to sign a goalie who is turning 30 years old to a five year $25M dollar deal with little to no playoff experience coming off of a regular season playing one good month in Toronto. I know, I know, sounds crazy but it's the truth.

So far in Oilerland we have real season from hell vibes taking place and that was encapsulated yesterday as the Oilers put Jack Campbell on waivers. This coming off a loss to Vancouver where I can't say Stuart Skinner was particularly great in net, either. So, what does this mean for Campbell and the Oilers? The idea here is (I'd imagine), is that when he clears through waivers, the Oilers send him down to Bakersfield to get him reps with the AHL affiliate to try and get his game right. I can say almost at 100% certainty that no club is going to claim him given his salary, but this is the NHL and crazier things have happened.

If Edmonton did do something right on the Campbell contract it was to not include a NMC because then sending him down to the AHL would be a no-go. Campbell so far this season has a 1-4-0 record with a 4.50 GAA and .873 SV% and will likely be replaced for the time being at the NHL level by Calvin Pickard who has been fine for Bakersfield and does have some NHL experience under his pads.

I watch and listen to hockey shows and podcasts all day and the theme that keeps coming up here for Edmonton is that the Oilers have to make a trade for a goaltender. Well, that's not entirely true. The theme is firing the coach but when something is going wrong with an NHL club that's of course always the first response. So that did get me thinking of a potential trade for Edmonton to make and I almost feel like the Oilers made their move already? I'd consider Pickard coming up to the NHL level as a pseudo-trade because at this point in the season, who is really looking to deal a goaltender out? My mind originally went to clubs that have goaltenders with manageable salaries that the Oilers could match close to dollar for dollar in a trade but it's too early for clubs not named San Jose to completely throw in the towel. The first name I thought of was Jake Allen ($3.8M) but he has a M-NTC with a seven team no trade and hey, maybe Edmonton is on that list? The second name I thought of was a goaltender with a similar salary in Petr Mrazek, but he also has a M-NTC, only he has a ten team no-trade. I can't see either of these clubs saying right now in November that they would sell and even so, Edmonton would have to move salary in the deal given their cap-space and in all likelihood include more now (meaning a draft pick), than they would at the deadline and if I'm the Oilers I can't see parting with a pick given where they are in the standings right now.


Thatcher Demko – G – Vancouver – 27 years old
Contract: $5M – two years remaining

So there's a world out there where Vancouver starts this season out much like they did last year and suddenly, the Thatcher Demko contract becomes the most desired one that we have. A 27-year-old goaltender without a NTC that you could add and still have two more years left before having to come to the table to negotiate a new deal would be a contending club's dream. Lucky for us though, that's not the case as the Canucks and Demko have both looked excellent to start the season.

I Tweeted out…or X'd out, whichever we're calling it now, last week that Vancouver might just be the fourth best team in the Western Conference which looking at as a whole might be a conference with five "good" teams in it. We were just talking Oilers, and the game that they played against the Canucks this week really was a snapshot of where each club was at. I believe at one point Edmonton had 23 shots on goal, with triple the zone time, and one goal to show for it. Vancouver on the other side had 11 SOG's, less than two minutes zone time, they had scored four times. For a club that had some really tough defensemen salaries on their hands two seasons ago, the Canucks have seemingly turned things around in an offseason and Demko's play can't be overlooked. Demko currently has the league's best GSAA at 11.33, over three points higher than the next closest goaltender (Jeremy Swayman) and a league best GSAx at 15.01 which is six points higher than the next closest (also Jeremy Swayman).

This Vancouver team reminds me a little bit of where Winnipeg was this time last season, think back and they were getting stellar goaltending from Connor Hellebuyck while generating decent offense but getting stellar play from their blueline. Sure, things went sideways for that club at the end, but the point being I don't think Vancouver would have to do too much here to find themselves in a playoff spot. Maybe an upgrade at their third line C but I'm not going to nit-pick Pius Suter's play and Sam Lafferty has been very good so far right behind him.

Tristan Jarry – G – Pittsburgh – 28 yrs old
Contract: $5.37M – Four years remaining – M-NTC

Keeping this one a little short here but do have to touch on it. Tristian Jarry left yesterday's game against Anaheim with what the Penguins are calling a face injury. Right now, he has a DTD designation in fantasy, and I'd imagine will be evaluated further but for those rostering I wouldn't be shocked if he misses a start or two. With Alex Nedeljkovic on LTIR it will be Magnus Hellberg ($785k) to take the net for Pittsburgh if indeed Jarry has to miss any amount of time.

Something we haven't touched on yet but important to note is that Hellberg is on Emergency Loan, which is different than getting a conventional call-up and that makes me think that there really could be time missed for Jarry. For goaltending in an emergency loan situation, a club must notify the league that they cannot dress two goaltenders. In a standard callup, a player does not need to pass through waivers to go back to the AHL if they play fewer than ten games or on the roster for 30 total days. For emergency the same applies but for an emergency you can split as you can play up to nine games on emergency with the following nine on a traditional call. Important to note for goaltenders, the rule changed during COVID that a goaltender can be added with a cap hit of $1M or less for a cap hit of $0 if the club does not have the sufficient cap space to call a player up.

*For continued fantasy news and notes, follow me on Twitter @ndySanz.