?

Boring but fairly realistic.

Two years for Halak? Is that second year really worth putting off starting Vrana's big long-term deal?

Halak, ha!

Considering his body of work with Boston over the past 2 years, It'd be hard to see him taking less than 2 years and around that amount. I think he easily gets that offer from another team. As for Vrana I see them making a few roster changes to fit him in. Moving out Kempny, Hagelin or Panik and replacing them with ELC's would help.

Point is you don't need to sign a goalie and then don't have to move anyone out if you don't want to. Just don't sign the goalie, and have Copley be the backup. He's more than capable.

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Seems somewhat risky to be assuming that a goalie with 30 NHL starts to his name and currently in the AHL to be "more than capable" of splitting time with Samsonov next year. I agree he's worth a look and has shown promise but the safe move in terms of depth is to sign a vet.

He's already gotten a look, hence the three year extension. We don't need to spend over 3 mill on a backup that will only get 25 starts.

His 3 year deal was more based on having organizational depth at G and having someone to expose for the expansion draft. I don't believe he would have gotten beyond 2 years otherwise. I'd be very surprised if Samsonov plays 55+ games next year either. Considering Reirden has only recently started upping the challenge for him in terms of the games he starts. He's faired well so far but there are a lot of hurdles for him to jump over to warrant starting him for that many games in his 2nd year in the league and 3rd in NA.

Copley has already had the backup role for a season and performed serviceably, so I don't see them going out and spending $3+ mill on another backup. Would it shock me though? No. The portrait you paint of Samsonov's potential path above doesn't sound all that different from Vasilevskiy though. Looks like he had 2 seasons between the AHL/NHL and then became the full time starter. So it would be pretty similar to Samsonov's path, and Samsonov was more highly touted from my understanding. Basically, barring anything catastrophic, Sammy is fixed to be the starter come fall 2020, and if the cap is too tight, the backup spot is going to Copley. That's my guess.