With Sebastian Cossa and Trey Augustine in the pipeline, the Red Wings have two highly-touted goalie prospects in the pipeline. They can look to the Boston Bruins for an example of how to balance the needs of two blue chip goalies.
With Sebastian Cossa and Trey Augustine in the pipeline, the Red Wings have two highly-touted goalie prospects in the pipeline. They can look to the Boston Bruins for an example of how to balance the needs of two blue chip goalies.
The Boston Bruins have a goaltending problem on their hands — a good problem, that is.
Both Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman have shown their greatness the past few seasons in both the regular season and playoffs. Both were top 10 in save percentage and goals against averages, and Moneypuck had them both in the top seven goalies by goals saved above expected. When a number of NHL teams don’t have one elite starter, the Bruins are drowning in them. They’re a two-headed monster that coach Jim Montgomery can trust in any situation with either goaltender.
They’re also a duo that Boston will have to pay out the nose for this upcoming contract cycle, and that’s where the big problem arises. In a position where only one player can start, Boston will have to pay the salary of two starting goaltenders when it renegotiates Swayman’s contract this offseason. Whereas the Bruins already spent the third highest percentage of their cap space (11.1%) on goaltending this season, that percentage is poised to go up if they re-sign Swayman. That’s money that can’t go to other positions on the ice that can play all 82 games, costing the Bruins some of the wiggle room they’d have for depth signings.
It’s a position the Detroit Red Wings could find themselves in soon enough.
With two highly regarded goaltending prospects in the pipeline — 2021 first rounder Sebastian Cossa and 2023 second rounder Trey Augustine — Detroit might one day have a tandem of two capable starters that it has to manage. Both have excelled as prospects, with Cossa leading Grand Rapids on an AHL Calder Cup Playoff run at the moment, and Augustine backing up Team USA at the IIHF Men’s World Championship after a standout freshman season at Michigan State. They’re two high-fliers in a position where the Red Wings haven’t had a homegrown starter since Petr Mrazek back in 2018. And if they’re successful, they’ll be making a lot of money on NHL contracts should they prove they’re starting caliber goaltenders.
To have two elite goaltenders is a position that few NHL teams find themselves in these days. This puts a lot of value in good goaltenders, which raises the value of the Red Wings prospects by comparison. If Cossa and Augustine do turn out to be NHLers, if they live up to the hype and win games, Detroit would be lucky to have that sort of goaltending.
Here’s where the problem sets in: the money spent on goaltenders is money that can’t be spent elsewhere. One of the benefits of a one-starter system is that one player gets a larger contract while the backup — who can’t play when the starter is playing — gets paid less. With two starters, someone’s getting paid big money to sit behind the bench and occasionally open the doors for a line change. This is an inefficient use of cap space, even if it has its perks.
This is a position that the Bruins were teased with this season, when Swayman made a respectable $3.475 contract this season that was pared down significantly by a messy arbitration hearing that made Swayman upset with Bruins management. All’s well that ends well, as Swayman and the Bruins are in the second round of the playoffs and he has become the leading figure in the goaltending rotation, but he’s probably due for a big pay day during this summer’s renegotiations. That, or Boston could trade him to another team for assets elsewhere in the lineup.
Regardless of how Swayman’s negotiations end up, Ullmark’s own four-year. $5 million AAV contract with the Bruins will expire after next season. He’s probably due for a big pay day, too, or else he could hit free agency as a UFA. The window of having two elite goaltenders in Boston seems to be ready to close soon.
How does this apply to Detroit? Well, the Red Wings should watch closely how the Bruins handle their goalie problem — not just as an example to copy, but a trial run of what they might one day go through with Cossa and Augustine. Observing the consequences and benefits of each and every decision is a demo of how Cossa and Augustine’s situation could play out if they become established NHLers whose contracts expire. Hindsight is 20/20, and the Red Wings are getting it for free if they situate themselves in Boston’s shoes and see how this summer’s negotiations play out.
The Red Wings have been fortunate enough to find adequate goaltending for cheap in this stage of the rebuild. This season, for example, Detroit used 8.6% of its cap space on goaltending, although almost two thirds of that was for Ville Husso’s $4.75 million contract that spent most of the season on IR. Even before those savings, this extra cap space saved on goaltending allowed the Red Wings to pursue depth at other positions. Offensively, Detroit was one of the NHL’s top 10 scoring teams not because it had so much elite talent, but because it had waves and waves of depth that could get the job done. That will have to change one day soon if goaltending becomes more expensive. Cheap but effective goaltending is a luxury, especially as the Red Wings become closer and closer to the salary cap.
One day, they might have to spend a lot of money on Cossa and Augustine, or otherwise move one of these players to bolster depth at other positions. However Detroit approaches this problem from a salary cap perspective, it can use Boston this offseason as a reference point for what goes right and wrong. This is a presumptuous prediction given the fickle nature of goaltending development, a position that relies so much on a player’s confidence and the team defense in front of them. But, it’s one that Cossa and Augustine’s prospect pedigree make possible to think about.
Maybe one day, the Red Wings could be the team worried about affording two elite goaltenders. Perhaps they might have to second guess which starter to lean on, versus wondering if they have a starter at all. For now, they just have to sit back and observe what’s going on in Boston, and take notes for how they can make the most of a great problem to have.
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