The Oilers have found their second goaltender for next season and it’s a familiar one. The team announced (Twitter link) that they’ve signed Mike Smith to a one-year, $2MM contract. CapFriendly clarifies (via Twitter) that it’s a $1.5MM base salary plus $500K in performance bonuses that break down as follows:
$50K in games played bonuses at 20 games, 25, 30, 35, and 40
$125K if they win the first round of the playoffs and he plays in two games
$125K if they win the second round of the playoffs and he plays in two games
The 38-year-old is coming back for a second stint with Edmonton after he played there last season as the second option to Mikko Koskinen. While he slightly improved on his save percentage from 2018-19 by posting a .902 mark in 39 regular season games, his GAA jumped to 2.95, his highest since 2014-15.
Last weekend, GM Ken Holland indicated that they wanted to see what options there were on the open market before making a decision on what to do for that position for next season. However, with goalies flying off the board quickly, the remaining free agent options were all short-term possibilities at best. While a trade was certainly an option, they’ve instead opted to go back to someone that they already know.
Statistically speaking, Koskinen (.917 SV%, 2.75 GAA) out-performed Smith last season and given the latter’s age, it’s reasonable to expect that Koskinen will take on a bigger share of the workload after getting the smaller portion in 2019-20. His first time in that situation came in 2018-19 and the results were mixed although he does now have more NHL experience at least.
Following this move and the addition of Tyson Barrie, Edmonton now has just over $700K in cap room per CapFriendly with defenseman Ethan Bear still in need of a new deal. However, the Oscar Klefbom injury will likely make him LTIR-bound which should free up some short-term wiggle room when the season gets underway.
start him in the playoffs again. please, for the comedic effect.
That’s just sad for Edmonton. My guess is they circled the wagon on everyone and came back to smith only after what happened yesterday with all the goalies signings this feels like oilers went begging him to come back and smith probably got an extra 500k for it
lol. they were left with smith . Worried about injury concerns with anderson , schneider . Howard is even worse then smith. shows even with mcdavid deadmonton still is last palce people want to be.
The Oilers should have signed another goalie to be Koskinen’s backup.
Doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result…
The Edmonton Oilers, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Holland was doing pretty good the last couple days and then he goes and re-signs Mike Smith?? Unbelieveable
You took my words, if you repeat any move Chiarelli did it should automatically throw up a red flag.
#nailedit well Connor it’s gonna be sad when you leave….