The St. Louis Blues have jumped to the top of the NHL standings thanks in part to solid goaltending from Jaraslav Halak and Brian Elliot who signed on a free agent backup. He’s been playing well enough where he could be a number one goalie on another team, but signed a two year extension worth $3.6 million. Halak is under contract for two more years as well with an average salary of $3.75 million.
Elliott has been the better goalie of the two, although Halak has come on of late. Both goalies are 26 and Elliott’s record is 15-5-1 with a 1.68 GAA, while Halak is 12-7-5 with a 2.08 GAA.
Don’t expect the Blues to trade one of these goalies either, despite Elliott getting the pay raise. Combining their two salaries for next season, which will roughly be $5.55 million, it will make the tandem one of the top paid for that position, but basically the Blues are keeping two star goalies for the price of one. Here’s how the top goalie salaries breaks down for next year.
| 1 | Ilya Bryzgalov | PHI | $10,000,000 |
| 2 | Henrik Lundqvist | NYR | $6,875,000 |
| 3 | Roberto Luongo | VAN | $6,716,000 |
| 4 | Cam Ward | CAR | $6,300,000 |
| 5 | Ryan Miller | BUF | $6,250,000 |
| 6 | Niklas Backstrom | MIN | $6,000,000 |
| 7 | Miikka Kiprusoff | CGY | $6,000,000 |
| 8 | Marc-Andre Fleury | PIT | $5,500,000 |
| 8 | HALAK/ELLIOTT | STL | $5,500,000 |
| 9 | Tim Thomas | BOS | $5,000,000 |