[Trade] Stars trade for Bishop and sign him to 6 year deal ($4.916 mil AAV)

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

I don't think Dallas signed Bishop to a 6 year deal with the idea they might be burying 2 or 3 years of that deal in the minors...

Then why negotiate the removal of the NMC after three years in the first place? Teams have to cover their bases. They surely hope that's never the case but they want to ensure that if it doesn't work out they can at least get him off the roster.

[Bingo]

I can see why people like the idea of Bishop in Calgary, I get it. He has a track record and he's an instant upgrade on a team that looks like it's ready to take a step.

So if they had done it I'd roll with it knowing it was a 2 year good news story, followed by 2 years of ups and downs, likely followed by two years of cap hell through an expensive back up or a four year buy out issue.

But I go back to what I said about Oshie ... stay away from other team's high end free agents. Do that and you avoid 6 or 7 big mistakes compared to one "win" over a window of X number of years.

I guess there's a book on baseball and walking away from your own free agents that states you lose that asset, but you avoid the hell of the decline at a high ticket price and end up with more flexibility to avoid complete rebuilds.

Makes sense to me ...

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Then why negotiate the removal of the NMC after three years in the first place?

So they can trade him if his play falls off after age 35?

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Then why negotiate the removal of the NMC after three years in the first place? Teams have to cover their bases. They surely hope that's never the case but they want to ensure that if it doesn't work out they can at least get him off the roster.

And the fact that it falls to 3.5M for each of the last three years pretty much says the same. They're not a cap team so they don't care about the AAV as much as say Calgary

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Wins take a whole team to produce, and I'm confused... did he win the Conn Smythe? It's not like he was a top 5 goaltender in the playoffs that year.

Unless you have evidence of that other than "made it to the finals."

You have made efforts to marginalized Bishop as average. Did you read the article posted earlier today?
http://www.thehockeynews.com/news/ar...-out-on-bishop

Pretty much sums up the fact that outside of this one season Bishop has been a top 5 goalie across the board for the previous 4 seasons. The debate should stop soon anyway as Bishop will never be a Flame and we all need to move on

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

So they can trade him if his play falls off after age 35?

He still has a NTC for the final three years which he would have to waive.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

He still has a NTC for the final three years which he would have to waive.

I don't see it as the contract set up to trade him, I see it as a non cap team only paying 3.5M to a player to be their backup for the final three years. Not the end of the world and less than they're paying Niemi right now to do the same thing

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

So does save percentage and goals against. The whole team is involved in all of that.

As for the Conn Smythe, if the Bolts had won the Cup it would have been between Bishop, Johnson and Hedman. Everybody knows that, you're just being obtuse now. Two game 7 shut outs, stellar numbers and 13 wins. It was a Conn Smythe worthy playoff performance.

Again, SV% is the strongest indicator of a goaltender's individual performance. GAA is good, but influenced more heavily by team play, and wins are almost irrelevant when judging a goaltender's ability. That's basic fact.

Which goaltender played better in these two scenarios:
.950 - 2.00 GAA - Loss
.800 - 2.00 GAA - Win

One suggests a good to great goaltending performance behind bad team play, the other suggests a bad goaltending performance behind good team play. Can you guess which is which?

Sorry, if your argument for Bishop is solely "well if you take out bad seasons and mention all the awards he didn't win but in my opinion should have then he's elite!" then I'll remain unconvinced. I thought participation medals were silly, but giving Bishop credit for "deserving" awards he didn't win? Oh boy. That's pretty flimsy to me.

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Again, SV% is the strongest indicator of a goaltender's individual performance. GAA is good, but influenced more heavily by team play, and wins are almost irrelevant when judging a goaltender's ability. That's basic fact.

Which goaltender played better in these two scenarios:
.950 - 2.00 GAA - Loss
.800 - 2.00 GAA - Win

One suggests a good to great goaltending performance behind bad team play, the other suggests a bad goaltending performance behind good team play. Can you guess which is which?

Sorry, if your argument for Bishop is solely "well if you take out bad seasons and mention all the awards he didn't win but in my opinion should have then he's elite!" then I'll remain unconvinced. I thought participation medals were silly, but giving Bishop credit for "deserving" awards he didn't win? Oh boy. That's pretty flimsy to me.

Yawn.

That's a tough break for the Flames. Despite the fact Bishop managed only a .910 save percentage and 2.54 goals-against average this past season, he was no doubt the Flames’ top target when it came to improving between the pipes this summer. That’s because in the four seasons prior to 2016-17, you could count on one hand the goaltenders who had been better than Bishop. From 2012-13 to 2015-16, Braden Holtby and Marc-Andre Fleury were the only goaltenders with more wins than Bishop’s 123. Carey Price, Cory Schneider, Cam Talbot and Tuukka Rask were the only masked men with better save percentages than Bishop’s .922 mark. That's not to mention that only five goaltenders posted more shutouts and, when it came to puck moving, Bishop had that ability, too, as witnessed by his seven assists over that span.

Top 5 goalie in the league over 4 seasons.

Elite.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

You have made efforts to marginalized Bishop as average. Did you read the article posted earlier today?
http://www.thehockeynews.com/news/ar...-out-on-bishop

Pretty much sums up the fact that outside of this one season Bishop has been a top 5 goalie across the board for the previous 4 seasons. The debate should stop soon anyway as Bishop will never be a Flame and we all need to move on

Yeah, I just think any argument on the basis of "take out his bad season and his other three look better" is profoundly dumb.

I'd love it if every teacher in school just deleted my worst mark when deciding my average. Unfortunately I've never been that lucky.

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Yeah, I just think any argument on the basis of "take out his bad season and his other three look better" is profoundly dumb.

I'd love it if every teacher in school just deleted my worst mark when deciding my average. Unfortunately I've never been that lucky.

It is 4 of 5 seasons actually. You are trying to sell what happened this year is what to expect moving forward. So no he wasn't perfect the last 5 years but for 4 of them he was top 5. We could argue similar things about Elliott if he actually played like a legit starter but he has always been a tandem goalie and likely always will be.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Which goaltender played better in these two scenarios:
.950 - 2.00 GAA - Loss
.800 - 2.00 GAA - Win

One suggests a good to great goaltending performance behind bad team play, the other suggests a bad goaltending performance behind good team play. Can you guess which is which?

I'm not disagreeing with your point but before I would consider your question I would be curious which goalie had a higher quality start percentage. Being able to keep the opponent to 2 GA while facing few shots can often skew SV% negatively which is what QS% addresses.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

Yawn.



Top 5 goalie in the league over 4 seasons.

Elite.

Sorry, is this conversation keeping you up through nap time big guy? :P

2 great seasons. No more, no less. 1 average (at best) season, 1 bad season. Not a good outlook on what he's consistently capable of.

Remains to be seen if he's capable of doing it again. Would've been happy to be wrong if he was a Flame though. Now I'll be pretty satisfied if my concerns are justified. But it's not going to cost me sleep if Bishop puts up 3 more .920 seasons and proves my concerns stupid.

[iloveicedhockey]

Yeah, I don't buy that he's been elite consistently. This past season he was below average but even in 2014-15 (0.916) he had price, duby, mason, Schneider, Crawford, Rinne, Anderson, holtby, Lundquist, Rask, lack, varlamov, Luongo, MAF, pavelec, hiller (!), quick, Bob and Elliott ahead of him (only included starters/borderline).

So two of four he's been great, two he's been below average.

If we could've got him for 5m I take the chance but as others have said we'd like be looking at 6m to play here, then you have the nmc/ntc on top. I don't think this deal ends up being just ok, it's either going to be a knockout for Dallas, or an anchor. It'll also be interesting to see how he takes to Hitchcock too, given Allen's resurgence after he was fired.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

It is 4 of 5 seasons actually. You are trying to sell what happened this year is what to expect moving forward. So no he wasn't perfect the last 5 years but for 4 of them he was top 5. We could argue similar things about Elliott if he actually played like a legit starter but he has always been a tandem goalie and likely always will be.

Not at all. I'm selling last year as part of who Bishop is, not some outlier. That's all.

Is anybody here stoked on Elliott for his last 3 years prior to this one? I don't think anyone is dying for an Elliott/____ tandem because he was such an incredible tandem goalie 3/4 years. Even if you don't buy Elliott as a legitimate top starter (I don't) it's funny to see how differently people talk about "one bad season" (or one exceptional season) depending on the player. Elliott, Mrazek, Bishop, even MAF before the playoffs started.

And the only reason I don't include his season 5 years ago is because he only played 22 games. Played well in them though.

[Vinny01]

Hell of an offseason for Dallas so far.

Hire (re-hire) one of the all time leader in wins in Hitchcock to coach the team

Move into the top 3 in the draft with a 6.4% chance of doing so

Get a 1st round pick for Eaves thanks to the Ducks making the WCF

Sign the top UFA goalie for a fair contract which was their biggest need

All this before the third round of playoffs begin

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

Hell of an offseason for Dallas so far.

Hire (re-hire) one of the all time leader in wins in Hitchcock to coach the team

Move into the top 3 in the draft with a 6.4% chance of doing so

Get a 1st round pick for Eaves thanks to the Ducks making the WCF

Sign the top UFA goalie for a fair contract which was their biggest need

All this before the third round of playoffs begin

They've done incredibly so far. If they can convince a team to take on either of their two anchor goalie contracts then wow, what an off season.

But right now they've got $15mil/yr in goaltending. Yikes.

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by jayswin

They've done incredibly so far. If they can convince a team to take on either of their two anchor goalie contracts then wow, what an off season.

I wonder if they can convince Vancouver to take a goalie if they swap picks?

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

I wonder if they can convince Vancouver to take a goalie if they swap picks?

If I were them I'd consider the eaves pick found money and use it to get rid of a goalie. Probably one of many reasons why I'm not an NHL GM. Even as a fan I get really panicky with dead cap space and want to do almost anything to get rid of it.

They've got the number two pick, blow the other one and avoid a potential goalie cap disaster.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Bingo

I can see why people like the idea of Bishop in Calgary, I get it. He has a track record and he's an instant upgrade on a team that looks like it's ready to take a step.

So if they had done it I'd roll with it knowing it was a 2 year good news story, followed by 2 years of ups and downs, likely followed by two years of cap hell through an expensive back up or a four year buy out issue.

But I go back to what I said about Oshie ... stay away from other team's high end free agents. Do that and you avoid 6 or 7 big mistakes compared to one "win" over a window of X number of years.

I guess there's a book on baseball and walking away from your own free agents that states you lose that asset, but you avoid the hell of the decline at a high ticket price and end up with more flexibility to avoid complete rebuilds.

Makes sense to me ...

I do think you need to look at goalies differently though. They seem to peak later. And with an AAV under $5M the cap hell risk is minimized.

The theory of staying away from other teams big ticket free agents is a sound one but it applies to your own players as well. The Patriots are an example of a team that lives by the motto that it's better to release a player a year too early than a year too late.