Originally Posted by powderjunkie
13 UFA goalies got signed on July 1 last year, plus Lehner a couple days later. Pretty sure Dustin Tokarski was the only other UFA signed for the rest of the off-season.
Bernier 3x3
Ward 3x1
Hutton 2.75x3
Halak 2.75x2
Khudobin 2.5x2
The rest under 2M AAV
The year before, Steve Mason, Brian Elliott, Bernier, Chad Johnson, and Anders Nilsson were the 2.5M+ guys (all 1-2 years). Reto Berra signed July 5, and Robin Lehner (re-signed 1 yr 4M, July 25).
The point is, it's really hard to get anything other than a backup or 1B on July 1. After that date, it's pretty darn difficult to acquire an NHL calibre goalie, because the team trading him away can't find a replacement.
Varlamov and Bobrovsky are very different than the scrap heaps listed above. I'll be shocked if either actually make it to July 1...if you're all in on one of them, you'll trade a middle pick to get their rights and get ink on paper.
It's also pretty hard to acquire a legit #1 goalie through trade - off the top of my head I can't think of any recent big ones involving guys not listed above, or of their ilk? It's quite a way back to the original Varlamov and Bobrovsky trades...Schneider, Luongo, Martin Jones, and Dubnyk are the only others that come to mind where a team has successfully shored up their creases for multiple years, and only the last two look likely to continue. There's a much, much, much longer list of goalie trades that haven't really panned out.
Here's the other bad news: since the 2005 lockout, every cup winning team has had a homegrown goalie, with two minor exceptions: Chris Osgood (homegrown in Detroit, but it was his second stint there), and JS Giguere (traded age 22, won in his 6th season as a Duck). Tim Thomas had a weird path, but probably fair to say he was grown as a Bruin.
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