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Jaroslav Halak’s contract: Better for Halak, the Blues ... or the Habs?

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Four years from now, we’ll look back at this summer as a turning point for both the Montreal Canadiens and St. Louis Blues. The question is: will the Habs look wise for taking Jaroslav Halak’s impressive playoff run with a grain of salt or will the Blues point to that trade (and subsequent signing) as the moment they finally found their rock in net? Of course, it could always be a little of both ...

It might be oversimplifying things a bit, but the Canadiens more or less chose to keep Tomas Plekanec (six years, $30 million) and still-unsigned restricted free agent Carey Price instead of Halak. This will put a massive amount of pressure on Price, in particular, unless something insane happens and Montreal decides not to pay their other RFA goalie. Can you imagine if the Habs end up being an out-of-the-blue answer for Marty Turco or Evgeni Nabokov?

Moving on to the Blues’ perspective, I think it’s a mixture of good news and bad news. Let’s pull the bad news band-aid off first: Halak is still a relatively unproven goalie. While his career regular seasons are pretty impressive in their own right (56-34-8, 91.9 save percentage and a 2.62 GAA), he’s only played in 101 regular season games so far. I’ve chided teams for making big investments in “contract year” goalies before, so there’s always that worry. Especially when you consider the fact that the Habs probably hope Halak will play in at least 60 games each year, or about 2.4 times as many appearances as he experienced in his entire NHL career so far.

Still, there are some big reasons to like this deal, too. For one thing, Halak is only 25 years old; if he’s the real deal then the Blues are getting premium prime years without any 30-year-old-flubber. The $3.75 million price tag isn’t half-bad, either, unless you compare it to the bargain basement deals signed by Chris Mason and Dan Ellis.

In fact, take a look at where he stacks up among starting goalie cap hits - plus some more analysis - after the jump.

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Here is a snapshot of what other goalies are making and where Halak falls. I won’t mention every goalie who makes less per year, though.

Lundqvist: $6.875M cap hit
Ward: $6.3
Miller: $6.25
Giguere: $6
Backstrom: $6
Kipper: $5.83
Vokoun: $5.7
Huet:$5.6
Luongo: $5.33
Brodeur: $5.2
M.A. Fleury: $5
Thomas: $5
Dipietro: $4.5
Hiller: $4.5
Bryzgalov: $4.25
Leclaire: $3.8
Halak: $3.75
Khabibulin: $3.75
Lehtonen: $3.55
Rinne: $3.4
Anderson: $1.81
Ellis: $1.5

So, by that count, 16 goalies make more money than Halak will earn, cap hit-wise. That’s also before we see what Turco and Nabokov might go for. When you consider salary cap impact, how many of those goalies would you choose over Halak?

Well over half the PHT readers polled thought that Halak was worth at least $4 million or more (a $5-$5.5 million range ended up winning the poll), so his deal is a dandy one in the light of public opinion too.

Does that mean that this is a slam dunk? Not necessarily. Still, the Blues put themselves on the map when they made that splashy trade and signed him to a reasonable deal. Halak gets some security in a four-year contract with a solid payday while the Blues avoided taking on a huge cap hit and didn’t go overboard in years with the inexperienced goalie.

These things can always change, but so far it looks like both Halak and the Blues came out as winners. But what about the Montreal Canadiens? Tell us how you feel about this contract - and the Habs’ decision to let Halak go - in the comments.