Ottawa Senators goalie Andrew Hammond makes a kick save as they face the Montreal Canadiens during second period of Game 2 NHL Stanley Cup first round playoff hockey action in Montreal on April 17, 2015.Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press
The signing of Andrew Hammond (aka The Hamburglar) to a three-year $4.05-million contract by the Ottawa Senators Wednesday puts an exclamation point on one of the regular-season's most endearing stories.
Hammond rode to the rescue when the Senators were down and out. With their two top goalies injured, he came up from the minors and spurred a heart-warming playoff run that put Ottawa in the postseason after being down there in draft lottery territory for a while.
Hammond went an incredible 20-1-2 when handed the starter's job, posting a 1.79 goals-against average, plus a .941 save percentage. That surge had an incalculable effect on the bottom line. Not only did the Senators unexpectedly bank the revenues from three home playoff dates, they also renewed interest in a team that was starting to get bad reviews from the home crowd. Ticket sales for next year will be greatly enhanced by what the Sens accomplished in the final third of this past year and for that Hammond deserves most of the credit.
The comparatively modest salary he signed – an average annualized cost of $1.35-million – is nice guaranteed money for someone who looked as if he was sentenced to minor-league wages for the rest of his playing career. It is an absolutely fair reward for what he accomplished, earning the NHL minimum last season. He helped restore credibility, renewed interest and created a myth that will be part of the franchise's folklore for a long time.
But what it does on a larger scale is make the off-season goalie market all the more intriguing. The Senators were the big winners in the Matt O'Connor sweepstakes, the highly prized college product out of Boston University who picked them over several others suitors when he hit the open market earlier in the spring.
O'Connor is likely their goalie of the future, but probably a couple of years away from legitimately challenging for regular duty. Hammond will be pencilled is as the back-up to whichever goalie the Senators decide to keep – likely Craig Anderson, because he is an experienced veteran who showed what he could do when he returned to the lineup after Hammond cooled off in the playoffs. Anderson turns 34 Thursday, and likely will still be a viable netminder for the foreseeable future, or until O'Connor is more NHL ready.
That leaves Robin Lehner as the trade bait they can dangle into the open market. Lehner is the goalie they kept ahead of Ben Bishop when faced with a similar surplus of netminders a couple of years back. Bishop is now the starter for the Tampa Bay Lightning and playing in the final four.
The return from Tampa looked bad at the time and worse now – Cory Conacher and a fourth-round pick. Conacher played only 72 games for Ottawa before shuffling off to Buffalo and then to the New York Islanders this year. He is the opposite of Tyler Johnson, a small player signed as a free agent that didn't become an NHL star (though he was briefly in the Calder Trophy talk his first year).
Lehner has played bits and pieces of five seasons with Ottawa now. He is 6-foot-5, 225 pounds and won the Jack Butterfield trophy in 2011 as the AHL playoff MVP, going 14-4 for the Senators' affiliate in Binghamton. He has never quite been able to translate minor-league into NHL success. On the other hand, he doesn't turn 24 until July and recent NHL history is littered with examples of goaltenders who found a home in their second stop in the league.
In short, Lehner will intrigue.
He'll intrigue Buffalo, where the general manager Tim Murray was with the Senators when they drafted him. Nobody needs a goalie more than the Sabres at the moment.
He'll intrigue Edmonton, where the general manager Peter Chiarelli was long gone from Ottawa when Lehner first appeared but was able to keep close tabs on his development because of his geographic proximity during the Boston Bruins' days.
He'll intrigue other suitors too, such as the Calgary Flames, who have two excellent goalie prospects in the system – Jon Gillies and Mason MacDonald – but neither of them is close to ready for regular NHL duty. Lehner would buy them time.
The biggest red flag on Lehner is his concussion history. The fear is that if you entrusted him with the starting job and then couldn't rely on him for health reasons, where are you then? Lehner got hurt in a mid-February game against the Carolina Hurricanes when teammate Clarke MacArthur crashed into him, the game that really started Hammond's run. Whoever ends up with Lehner will closely examine his medical records – every NHL deal is contingent upon a player passing a physical – but then, if a deal goes through, they'll roll the dice and see what happens.
Unlike the past couple of seasons and off seasons, the goalie market could be fairly limited this year, which could drive up the price for any quality netminders that happen to be shopped. Weighing Lehner's upside against his medical history will be one of the key decisions NHL GMs will wrestle with this off-season, a high-risk, high-reward call that could be franchise-altering if it goes the right way.