There has been some confusion about Jaroslav Halak and the specifics of his performance bonuses.
Earlier this month, Halak played in his 10th game of the season. He lasted just over 16 minutes, giving up five goals against on 12 shots to the New York Islanders.
Halak has a performance bonus in his contract with the Vancouver Canucks that awards him $1.25 million after 10 games. It was widely understood that this meant 10 games played but it turns out it actually meant 10 starts. Halak’s game against the Islanders was only his 9th start of the season — one of his previous games play was in relief.
It’s a moot point. Halak got his 10th start of the season on Monday against the New Jersey Devils, activating his performance bonus. He lasted longer than against the Islanders but performed about the same, giving up six goals on 14 shots.
Combined with an appearance in relief of Thatcher Demko in between those two starts, Halak has given up 13 goals on 37 shots in his last three games for a save percentage of .649.
You could say he hit the .649 jackpot of $1.25 million.
The Canucks are already up against the cap and into their LTIR cap relief but that cap relief can’t be used on performance bonuses. Those bonuses can, however, be pushed to the following year. That would be $1.25 million of dead money on the books.
This is a tough situation all around. The Canucks need a reliable backup for Demko because they can’t run their number one goaltender ragged and they can’t afford to give up points when Demko doesn’t play.
Halak might perform better if he got more starts, as he did earlier in the season. Two starts in a month isn’t a lot but it’s a Catch-22. Halak needs to start more games to play better but he needs to play better to justify starting him in more games.
The Canucks might want to trade Halak but there are two significant barriers. One is that Halak hasn’t performed well enough for another team to want to acquire him, particularly with the poison pill of the $1.25 million of dead money attached. The other is that Halak has a no-movement clause, so he can veto any potential trade.
That no-movement clause also means the Canucks can’t put Halak on waivers to assign him to the AHL either. The Canucks are stuck.
It’s incredible that Halak even has a no-movement clause. There are just seven other goaltenders in the NHL with a no-movement clause and they’re all big-name starting goaltenders, plus Linus Ullmark, who was supposed to be a big-name starting goaltender.
Guys like Carey Price, Sergei Bobrovsky, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Jacob Markstrom get no-movement clauses, not 36-year-old backup goaltenders on a one-year deal.
There’s no use complaining about it now, of course. The Canucks have a backup goaltender they can’t trust that they can’t trade or waive and who will cost them at least $1.25 million against the cap next season. Worse, he’s not the only goaltender the Canucks will be paying not to play for them, as Braden Holtby will have a $1.9 million cap hit next season from his buyout.
That’s $3.15 million of dead money next season. Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin have their work cut out for them.
I watched this game.
- Maybe Halak got rattled early when Nico Hischier swept through his crease and kicked out his skate, causing him to fall on his keister. Halak recovered to stop Hischier a moment later and gave the referee a piece of his mind for missing the obvious goaltender interference. Maybe he never got that piece of his mind back from the referee.
- It didn’t help that the Canucks were giving the puck away like it was a car and they were YouTubers with too much money. It started with a blind backhand pass by Oliver Ekman-Larsson that went right to Jack Hughes, who broke out 2-on-1 against Tyler Myers and whipped a hard shot just under Halak’s glove to make it 1-0.
- Later, it was Myers with the giveaway, blindly throwing a puck up the boards where it was picked off by Dawson Mercer. In the ensuing chaos, J.T. Miller lost track of Mercer, creating a 2-on-1 down low against Ekman-Larsson. Mercer fed Yegor Sharangovich and he fired a quick shot glove side to make it 2-0.
- “We weren't ready to go. We talked about what they're going to bring, how fast they play, and we didn't match it at all,” said Conor Garland. “That's just unacceptable in a game like this, in a situation like this.”
- Two minutes later, it was 3-0 thanks to a power play goal. Quinn Hughes got caught out of position and couldn’t get back to check Mercer at the backdoor, but Halak also played it terribly, shuffling around wildly on his knees and allowing the cross-crease pass from Jesper Bratt.
- Halak wasn’t good, by any means, but the Canucks also gave up a lot of chances. The Devils even hit three posts in the first period. The entire team wasn’t good enough.
- “Nothing's on our goalies. I mean, we have to play better in front of them,” said Garland. “Jaro's a great goalie, a great teammate, a great guy and for us to play like that in front of them is — I used the word unacceptable, but it's tough to do that to him. He works so hard in practice and doesn’t get in as much and then to go in and not play well in front of him, it’s a bad look.”
- Really, the start of this game wasn’t too different from the Canucks’ start against the New York Rangers the night before, as they gave up plenty of grade-A chances in that game too. The difference is that Demko made some stunning saves, giving the Canucks a chance to find their legs. They definitely had more jump against the Rangers but they needed that elite goaltending to keep from going down early.
- “Some games we can play so good in the first period and then other games — as in most of the year — if there’s going to be something bad that’s going to happen, it’s going to happen in the first period,” said Boudreau. “I read every important notice to these guys on what this game is all about and to not come out as well as we were supposed to come out is shocking to me.”
- The Canucks came out in the second period intent to turn the game around and started off the right way with a goal from Vasily Podkolzin. The pressure on the forecheck forced a turnover to Travis Hamonic at the point and he sent a slap pass in front that tipped first off Bo Horvat’s stick, then off Podkolzin’s stick and past goaltender Nico Daws. The old double deflection gets them every time.
- The good vibes were short-lived. The speedy Jesper Boqvist got a step on Hughes and drove to the net, where Halak was so deep that he ended up literally inside the net. Halak got his pad on the puck but the puck still went over the goal line for the 4-1 goal.
- “We truly believed — because we’ve done it a couple times now where we’re down a few goals that we can come back and score,” said Boudreau. “The whole idea was just to win the second period and then you might be able to take them in the third…but when they got the fourth after we’d gotten the third, it was pretty deflating.”
- Boudreau was reluctant to pull Halak, since this was supposed to be Demko’s one night off. Even after a fluke point shot went in off Luke Schenn’s knee to make it 5-1, Halak stayed in. It was only when Bratt sent a wrist shot sailing inside the far post while Halak clearly had no clue where it was that Boudreau finally sent Demko into the game.
- “At that point, it was done because it was just a simple shot that he missed,” said Boudreau. “When the sixth one went in, it looked like he was a beaten man and so you’re doing it for his sake.”
- The Canucks got one back in the second period. Brad Hunt activated off the point and drew a defender to him on the boards, which opened up space for Tanner Pearson in the middle. Hunt slipped the puck inside to Pearson and Pearson fired the puck inside the net.
- There’s not much else to say about the game. The Canucks, playing on the second half of back-to-backs, couldn’t be expected to come back in the third period and the Devils added a seventh goal off the stick of Dougie Hamilton as he jumped up in the rush.
- Elias Pettersson’s five-game point streak came to an end, though it’s hard to blame him when you see that his two linemates for most of the game were Alex Chiasson and Tyler Motte. It seems pretty counterproductive to have a guy with 14 points in his last 8 games saddled with two fourth-liners, but then again, I’m not an NHL coach.
- Nils Höglander started the game with Pettersson but was bumped from his line in exchange for Motte after the first period, likely because Höglander was on the ice for two of the three Devils goals up to that point. It was hard to blame Höglander on the first goal but, on the second, he did blow the zone early and probably should have been where Myers put the puck. It still would have been a turnover, as Myers didn’t even look where he was passing, but at least Höglander could have been there to defend after the turnover.
- “I don’t know why it’s so difficult for him to make an impact,” said Boudreau. “I moved guys around because it wasn’t working. When you’re coaching and things aren’t working, you’ve got to find some combinations hopefully that will…I just thought maybe him going on a line with hardworking guys might work but obviously, it didn’t do much to add to the game.”
- So, now Quinn Hughes owes Jack Hughes a painting for their house. Jack has now won all four games against Quinn, which, as much as Quinn might downplay it, has to be eating him up a little bit. Maybe once Luke Hughes joins the Devils, Quinn can start picking up some wins and, since there will be two younger brothers, it'll feel twice as good.
