Details emerged Saturday as the Columbus Blue Jackets confirmed signing goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky to a four-year contract extension.
The deal is for $29.7 million, according to The Columbus Dispatch. More important, it is an amicable end to what could have been a contentious contract process.
It's also a clear indication the Jackets are pleased with and plan to keep Bobrovsky as their No. 1 goal. He certainly is being paid like one, with a salary cap figure of $7.425 million that is second only to the New York Rangers' Henrik Lundqvist.
As Yahoo! Sports noted, goalies with more impressive credentials are making less per season, but are signed for more years. Let other teams sweat about injuries and whether they'll may for a guy six years down the line.
Despite the Jackets' middling record — they were 18-18-3 ahead of Saturday's home game against the New York Islanders.
Soon after the deal was announced Friday, Bobrovsky allowed four goals on 31 shots against the Toronto Maple Leafs. It wasn't an inspired performance for the goalie or the team. That's been a theme in a season in which injuries have been a problem and discipline has vanished at times.
Is Bobrovsky a long-term answer? Certainly GM Jarmo Kekalainen sees the possibility by locking up Bobrovsky threw 2019. Two things are certain: The Blue Jackets have certainty in goal, and they avoided a potential conflict.
“We wanted to make sure we got on it early enough that it didn’t get to a point where there’s a deadline,” Kekalainen told The Dispatch. “We had plenty of time to get this done, and we had the full intention of getting it done.”
Bobrovsky is 15-10-2 with a 2.75 goals-against average, .917 save percentage and one shutout in 27 games. Not bad; not great so far this season.
There's a track record to consider in evaluating Bobrovsky. He carried the team into playoff contention in 2012-13 en route to winning the Vezina Trophy. He got them to the Stanley Cup playoffs last season and had a solid run against the Pittsburgh Penguins. And the Jackets believe he can hit those marks again.
Goaltending, Kekalainen believes, is the common thread of successful teams.
“We believe he’s only going to improve,” Kekalainen said. “Ultimately, it’s up to the player to prove he’s worth the contract he gets, but we evaluate these players every day. We believe, with his hard work and dedication, he’s going to be the top, or one of the top, goalies in this league for a long time.”
Congratulations on the contract; now earn your salt. And there's good reason to believe he can, in part because at 26 he should be reaching his peak years.
The determination, of course, doesn't rest solely with Bobrovsky. The Jackets must continue to build around him and show signs of doing just that with recent deals for center Brandon Dubinsky and winger Nick Foligno.
“We want to make sure the core stays in place,” Kekalainen said.