Holland Gains Redemption With Mrazek Contract
By: Will Burchfield
@burchie_kid
In an offseason where Ken Holland has been criticized for overvaluing his own players, he gained a measure of redemption with his new deal for Petr Mrazek.
The 24-year-old netminder had requested a two-year, $10-million contract earlier this week, prompting the Wings to file for arbitration. With a 9 a.m. Wednesday deadline looming, Holland knocked Mrazek down to $3.85 million in year one and $4.15 million in year two. $8 million is more than what the Wings had originally offered, yes, but it's fair market value for the team's goalie of the future.
Indeed, it's even a bargain.
Per GeneralFanager.com, Mrazek's most direct cap comparables are Anaheim's Jonathan Bernier, Edmonton's Cam Talbot and Vancouver's Jacob Markstrom. We'll place Minnesota's Devan Dubnyk on this list as well.
Here's a quick breakdown of how the aforementioned four goalies stack up with Mrazek.
|
Goalie (age) |
2016-17 Cap Hit | Term | Career GAA | Career SV% |
| Mrazek (24) | $4 million | 2 years | 2.29 | .920 |
| Markstrom (26) | $3.67 million* | 3 years | 2.99 | .904 |
| Bernier (27) | $4.15 million | 2 years | 2.67 | .915 |
| Talbot (29) | $4.17 million | 3 years | 2.27 | .924 |
| Dubnyk (30) | $4.33 million | 6 years | 2.61 |
.915 |
*Markstrom's deal begins in 2017-18
These numbers would suggest Mrazek is being woefully underpaid. Certainly in regard to Bernier and Dubnyk, he deserves well more than $4 million per season. And then there's the comparative case of 26-year-old Frederik Andersen, who signed a five-year, $25-million deal with the Maple Leafs in June with a career 2.34 GAA and .914 SV%. Had the Wings and Mrazek entered arbitration, you can bet Mrazek's camp would have held up Andersen's deal in flashing red lights and screamed, "Look what he got!!!"
Career numbers can be misleading though, especially for someone like Dubnyk who parlayed a scorching finish to the 2014-15 season into a substantial payday. And Bernier, who cashed in that same off-season, hasn't developed the way his statistics suggested he would at the time. So let's take a look at each goalie's numbers in the season preceding his new deal, and see if Mrazek's contract still looks like a bargain by comparison.
| Goalie (Age when signed) | Year Signed | Preceding Year's GAA | Preceding Year's SV% |
| Mrazek (24) | 2016 | 2.33 | .921 |
| Markstrom (26) | 2016 | 2.73 | .915 |
| Bernier (26) | 2015 | 2.87 | .908 |
| Talbot (28) | 2016* | 2.36 | .921 |
| Dubnyk (29) | 2015 | 2.07 | .929 |
| Andersen (26) | 2016 | 2.30 | .919 |
*Talbot signed in January. We will consider his stats over 2014-15 as well.
This gives us a clearer picture of the forces behind each contract. These goalies weren't so much paid for their career numbers as their most recent ones, their value based primarily on presumed development. Again the most interesting case is Andersen, who had just about identical numbers to Mrazek last season but reeled in a longer, more lucrative deal. (Like, much longer, much more lucrative.) And it's not as if Andersen has considerably more NHL experience: 114 career starts to Mrazek's 83.
The only goalie with better numbers than Mrazek on the above list is Dubnyk, who was duly paid for his 39-game tear with the Wild at the end of the 2014-15 season. But he came back to earth this year (of course he did), posting a 2.33 GAA and .918 SV% that mirrored Mrazek's 2.33 GAA and .921 SV%. Furthermore, while Dubnyk's 2014-15 season was a wild aberration within the context of his career, Mrazek's 2015-16 campaign was a continuation of the norm.
So of the two goalies under consideration here who received substantially larger contracts than Mrazek, one was paid for a performance that Mrazek just matched and the other was paid for a performance that Mrazek would come to match. To wit: five years, $25 million for Andersen; six years, $26 million for Dubnyk.
And two years, $8 million for Mrazek. If he merely plays up to his career standards, $4 million per season will be a bargain. But assuming he develops further over the next two years, the Wings will have themselves a flat-out steal between the pipes. And they'll be able to corral his soaring value at the conclusion of the contract because Mrazek will still be a restricted free agent. That's really good work by Holland.
Yes, the team-friendly nature of Mrazek's new deal is undone by the $5.3 million owed next season to Jimmy Howard…and the $5 million owed to Danny DeKeyser…and the $3.85 million owed to Darren Helm. But to say those contracts counteract Holland's latest move is not to say they obscure it.
This was a win for the beleaguered GM in an offseason mostly full of losses.
