‘We’re all gonna have to deal with it together’: Fernando Tatis Jr.’s teammates have his back as he returns
FERNANDO TATIS JR.‘S highly anticipated return to baseball will begin when he leads off Thursday night’s game from Chase Field in Phoenix. Boos will inevitably reign down, the hostility that promised to surround him will instantly be felt. But the greatest challenge of his most important season might begin shortly thereafter, in the bottom half of the first inning, when he bypasses his original position of shortstop and ventures out to his new spot in right field. Confronting the backlash of a steroid-related scandal can be exceedingly difficult for any player. Nelson Cruz thinks it’s toughest on the outfielders.
“You’re out there alone,” he said. “You hear everything.”
In January 2013, a decade before he would join Tatis on this year’s San Diego Padres, Cruz was among those linked to Biogenesis, the Florida-based anti-aging clinic that became notorious for distributing performance-enhancing drugs. A 50-game suspension followed in August. And the time between was spent occupying right field for the Texas Rangers. Every road game offered its own unique blend of boos and jeers, the most prominent of which were heard during the quiet moments between balls in play. Now Tatis will confront the same obstacle.
His only path, Cruz believes, is forward.
“He’s gotta go out there and do his job,” Cruz said. “That’s the only way he can shut up the noise.”
It has been more than 18 months since Tatis played in a real game with real stakes. The 2022 season began with an injury to his wrist and ended with a positive test for an anabolic steroid. His return, therefore, is clouded with uncertainty. There are questions surrounding how his body will respond to two surgeries, how his offense will be impacted by the down time, how his skills will translate to a new position, how his mind will process the negative energy that follows him. One aspect that shouldn’t be doubted, Padres manager Bob Melvin believes, is whether his teammates will accept him.
The news of Tatis’ 80-game, PED-related suspension on Aug. 12 came less than five months after it was learned he had fractured his left wrist during an offseason motorcycle accident, drawing pointed criticism from within his clubhouse. Key members of the Padres were publicly and privately irked at what they believed was a lack of accountability and maturity from Tatis, a sentiment that festered until he addressed them 11 days later. Now, Melvin asserted, “They’ve embraced him.”
“Because of the way he handled it,” Melvin explained. “The way he went to everybody and opened up and was remorseful. And you could tell he was being authentic. He wasn’t just having these conversations just to have them, to check the box. It wasn’t anything like that. And you could feel that.”
When Tatis led a 15- to 20-minute players-only meeting on Aug. 23, he asked for forgiveness but also for help. Subsequent comments from some of the team’s core members painted him as genuine and sincere. Tatis followed by undergoing the left shoulder surgery the Padres recommended a year earlier and later a second cleanup of his injured left wrist. He returned to San Diego in the first week of the new year to begin preparations for the 2023 season, then was among the first to report to the team’s spring training complex in February.
A new season provided a clean slate with his teammates. Tatis’ work ethic set a positive tone. His free spirit and infectious energy often made it seem as if he’d never left.
“I see an excited kid that’s trying to move past a mistake he made,” pitcher Joe Musgrove, one of the team’s leaders, said early in spring training. “He’s talked about it a lot — about how he feels like he lost himself, made some poor decisions and was hanging with people he shouldn’t be hanging around. He was very open and honest about what happened, how he felt about it. You can see this offseason — there’s a level of excitement, a level of energy and passion. You can tell he’s really trying to make that step of getting himself past it and show the world the athlete that he is and the player he’s capable of being.”
Tatis, who turned 24 in January, has quickly gone from one of the sport’s most celebrated prodigies to one of its foremost antiheroes. It’s a circumstance he has readily acknowledged, but one he has referred to as “a challenge,” not unlike anything he might encounter within the boundaries of his profession. He has spoken often about his desire to “embrace” the vitriol. Now it appears he’ll have help.
“We’re all gonna have to deal with it together,” Manny Machado said, “as a team.”
MELVIN’S FIRST SEASON with the Padres, in 2022, didn’t offer many opportunities to connect with Tatis. The ensuing offseason was a chance to make up for lost time. Melvin historically leaves his players alone during the winter, but he felt an obligation to keep in touch with Tatis.
Often the exchanges were lighthearted. Melvin would send videos of hiking trails he’d find in Arizona, a subject in which the two found commonality. Tatis would follow up with pictures of the sun setting on his native Dominican Republic. Occasionally, when it felt natural, they would engage in deeper conversations about what took place and what would follow. Melvin’s message often centered on how quickly this will all move past him once the games begin to pile up and the monotony of a routine sets in. He told Tatis he might someday look back on this positively.
“Things came so easy for him in baseball, and now all of a sudden he had to go through something he wasn’t used to,” Melvin said. “I think he can end up being better for it.”
One of the clearest signs presented itself in late February, on the morning of Tatis’ first spring training game. Melvin took the Padres job in large part because he wanted to manage Tatis, one of the sport’s singular talents. But he spent an entire year without being able to write Tatis’ name in the lineup. When he finally did, Tatis acknowledged the significance. “I’m finally in there for you,” Tatis told him.
“That meant a lot to me,” Melvin said recently. “It just kind of showed you where he was in this process.”
Tatis, allowed to play in exhibition games under the terms of his suspension, began with an eight-pitch walk that was followed by a stolen base. Over his next 18 plate appearances, he reached base only twice and didn’t produce a single hit. He was particularly late on fastballs. But he was making sound swing decisions and his body was recovering better than he expected. An 0-for-16 start to Cactus League play turned into a 12-for-26 finish.
His experience in the outfield followed a similar path. On March 2, Tatis misread a fly ball during his first start in right field, taking a circuitous route and watching the baseball carom off his glove. Two days later, he turned in a nifty sliding catch. He displayed both ends of the spectrum within the same at-bat on March 17, misreading a foul popup that ultimately dropped and then tracking down a line drive to prevent a double. Ten days later, after a handful of aggressive throws that prevented extra bases, he recorded his first outfield assist.
Tatis’ newfound enthusiasm toward the outfield, a position he didn’t quite embrace in 2021, has seemed to resonate in his clubhouse. He grew up wanting to be the Dominican Derek Jeter, a pursuit that ended — or, at the very least, paused — when the Padres signed Xander Bogaerts to an 11-year, $280 million contract in December. But he has readily accepted the change.
“He certainly has aspirations to play shortstop in the future, as he should,” Melvin said. “But there’s an understanding that this is best for our team, and that’s just kind of the way he’s going about it.”
Twenty games remained on Tatis’ suspension when the Padres broke camp in late March, but he declared himself “ready right now.” He proved it during a subsequent rehab stint with the Padres’ Triple-A affiliate, an eight-game stretch in which he slashed .515/.570/1.212 and accumulated seven home runs. Six came in his past three games.
Five came in a stretch of seven at-bats.
Tatis turned on a fastball out over the plate in the second inning last Thursday and sent a prodigious drive into the lawn that resides beyond the outfield fence at Southwest University Park in El Paso, Texas, slightly to the left of the center field batter’s eye. He followed by homering on a line drive in the fourth and a fly ball in the eighth, each pulled a tad more than the other, then smoked two baseballs that left the stadium entirely two days later — one to left field, the other to right-center.
Brett Sullivan, a journeyman catcher who was recently called up to the major leagues, watched them all from the dugout.
“The first two you’re like, ‘Hey, I get it, he’s that good,'” Sullivan said. “And then by the third one you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, he’s locked in.’ And then to go [again] the first game next at-bat, we all started laughing. And then he does it again and you’re like, ‘This guy’s a made-up player.'”
Tatis returned to the Padres’ clubhouse on Monday, for the first of three straight workouts that preceded his return, and Bogaerts told him it seemed as if he were playing a video game. His presence brought a discernable energy.
“You can sense it,” Bogaerts said. “There’s a lot of talk — positive talk, positive vibes. This is a once-in-a-generation-type talent that we’re here to see, and I’m so happy that he’s on our team.”
Bogaerts represents one of four Padres regulars who have yet to play with Tatis, a sign of both how long he has been out and how aggressively the roster has turned over. His suspension occurred 10 days after Padres general manager A.J. Preller emptied his farm system to acquire Juan Soto, who has drawn comparisons to Ted Williams for his advanced feel of hitting. Bogaerts, a four-time All-Star with the Boston Red Sox, has since been added to the mix, sharing the left side of the infield with Machado, who is halfway into a Hall of Fame career.
Tatis will return to lead off in front of all three of them, representing one of the most decorated foursomes in recent memory.
“It’s gonna be really fun,” Soto said.
THOSE WHO HAVE watched Tatis this year have noticed someone who’s outwardly happy to be back but is also committed to maintaining that joy in his play. After throwing out his first runner in spring training, Tatis strutted and and pretended to holster a gun with his fingers. On home runs, he continued to perform his patented stutter-step upon reaching third base, then boisterously celebrated with teammates in the dugout. The threat of backlash has seemingly done nothing to dilute the flair and the swagger that once turned Tatis into a transcendent star. If anything, it has helped accentuate it.
“One of the things we talked about early on was at some point you’re gonna have to forgive yourself and just kinda move past it and try to show everybody who you really are and what’s in there,” Musgrove said. “It’s very easy to walk around and feel like you have to have this certain sense of remorse or you have to show everyone how bad you feel for what you did, but I think he’s done that already and he’s shown what he’s about and the things that he’s gonna do to fix that.”
Tatis’ return to the public consciousness occurred in early February, when the Padres trotted him out as part of a community outreach event, joining members of the Marines and visiting children at a local elementary school. The following day, Tatis was presented alongside Machado, Soto and Bogaerts, and showered with love during a fan fest that was attended by nearly 50,000 residents of San Diego.
Reality hit shortly thereafter. Tatis was roundly booed when the team played in front of a heavy contingent of Los Angeles Dodgers fans at Camelback Ranch on March 8. When he hit his first minor league home run on April 5, the pitcher who gave it up, Kade McClure, called him a “cheater” on Twitter. The animosity will only heighten when the stage gets bigger, particularly from road fans but perhaps also from his own peers.
“He has to be himself if he’s gonna be the player that he is,” Melvin said. “It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks of him; it just matters what we think of him.”
Colorado Rockies outfielder Jurickson Profar, one of Tatis’ closest friends and most ardent supporters on last year’s Padres, has offered similar advice.
“‘Just be you,'” Profar recalled telling him. “‘Play your game, and people are going to love you.’ All the kids, they’re going to love him — because of the way he plays. He’s an exciting baseball player.”
Profar and Tatis still communicate almost daily and, as of the first week of April, were still trying to decide on their annual wager. Usually they settle on who will hit the most home runs, a bet Profar always loses. Profar, who has the benefit of spending his home games at the hitter-friendly Coors Field this season, was instead thinking of making it doubles. But he didn’t feel good about that, either.
“I know he’s gonna be fine,” Profar said of Tatis. “He will find a way to be great.”
Tatis accumulated 39 home runs, 27 stolen bases, a .956 OPS and 6.4 FanGraphs wins above replacement through his first 143 major league games from 2019 to 2020. The Padres rewarded him with what was billed as a “statue contract” — a massive 14-year, $340 million extension — in February 2021, a month after his 22nd birthday, then watched him finish third in MVP voting despite battling a series of shoulder subluxations.
The events that followed completely altered the perception of Tatis and prevented him from doing what he loves most for an entire year. While the Padres made a stirring run to the National League Championship Series last October, Tatis watched from his couch.
“That gave me a lot of fuel,” he said shortly before reporting for spring training. “Trust me.”
Tatis’ return is expected to provide an instant jolt to a team that has lost six of eight games and has scored only two runs over its past 35 innings. As the season plays out, observers expect Tatis to take some overly aggressive routes on fly balls but also expect his arm strength and agility to serve him well in right field. On offense, they think he’ll be the same dynamic hitter and will thrive off the new rules that have allowed for more stolen bases.
Said Padres infielder Jake Cronenworth: “I think a lot of people are forgetting how special he is as a player.”
The big question, of course, revolves around how he’ll ultimately be remembered.
Encouragement can be found within his clubhouse.
Cruz, now a 42-year-old designated hitter for the Padres, has become one of the game’s most celebrated players, a prominent philanthropist revered by his peers and treated like royalty among Latin-born players. His ties to steroids are forever a part of his story, but they are no longer his defining characteristic. Cruz envisions similar possibilities for Tatis, noting how young and charismatic he is and how much baseball lies ahead.
“Two years from now,” Cruz said, “he will be a superstar and this will be in the past.”
What a week it was in college football: Five AP Top 25 teams lost to unranked opponents, and after No. 6 BYU’s defeat to Kansas, the Big 12 appears to be up for grabs after victories by Colorado and Arizona State.
The Buffaloes and Sun Devils have proved football fans wrong this season as Colorado is tied for the top spot in the Big 12 and Arizona State is a game behind. With both teams on a winning streak, what can they credit for their success?
After a rough start to the season, Billy Napier and Florida have turned things around and the Gators are one win from bowl eligibility. With an upset win over No. 22 LSU, is it time to stop questioning Napier?
Our college football experts break down key storylines and takeaways from Week 12.
Losses might be as important as wins in the CFP committee meeting room
With six new committee members, a new committee chair and a new College Football Playoff executive director, there are a lot of new faces at selection central. Each group is different. Ranking the top 25 teams is a subjective system, and this year’s committee appears to be putting an emphasis on losses — maybe more than in years past.
Who teams lose to and how has always mattered, but it might be more of a factor this year with multiple two-loss teams to sort through. It’s also a big reason why Ohio State is No. 2 and Penn State is No. 4 — close losses to highly-ranked teams. It’s never a good time for a bad loss, but it could mean the difference this year between a first-round bye, a first-round home game — or a seat on the couch. — Heather Dinich
Rivalries matter more than ever
Texas has never viewed Arkansas on par with rival Oklahoma, but Arkansas lives to torment Texas. Three years ago, the No. 15 Longhorns came to Fayetteville and were stomped 40-21. Jubilant Arkansas fans stormed the field.
But returning as conference rivals for the first time since the Razorbacks left the Southwest Conference in 1991 seemed to mean something to No. 3 Texas, too, after a tough 20-10 win over the 5-5 Razorbacks. “It was personal for sure,” senior edge rusher Barryn Sorrell said.
Quinn Ewers sealed the win by running for three yards on fourth-and-2 with 2:14 left. Rather than trying to evade linebacker Larry Worth III, Ewers decided to bull his way over him. “I just tried to put a little statement into it, that’s all,” Ewers said with a smile. “Just the history that these two programs have together, it’s going to be tough.”
Texas joining the SEC reconnected old grudge matches with Texas A&M and Arkansas. The 74,929 who showed up Saturday — the 10th-largest crowd in Arkansas history — threw their Horns Down at every opportunity. With an eight-game SEC schedule, there’s only one permanent rivalry guaranteed per school, and for the Longhorns, that will always be Oklahoma. Texas-Arkansas and Texas-Texas A&M could come and go. When college football is becoming more unrecognizable by the day, regional rivalries should be a priority. — Dave Wilson
Congrats to Colorado and Arizona State for proving us all wrong
It’s probably time to admit we were wrong about Deion Sanders’ Colorado and Kenny Dillingham’s Arizona State in 2024.
OK, maybe not all of us. But as both schools improved to 8-2 on Saturday, a preseason poll from CBS Sports resurfaced that ranked Sanders and Dillingham, respectively, as the 15th- and 16th-best coaches among the Big 12’s 16 football programs. And whether you had either coach/program that low in August, there can’t be many of us who expected either school to be here in Week 12: level alongside Iowa State for second in the Big 12 standings and in line to play at least some kind of role in the College Football Playoff picture over the final weeks of the regular season.
Colorado earned its fourth win in a row and Travis Hunter logged another entry to his Heisman Trophy résumé in a 49-24 win over Utah on Saturday, yet Sanders says the Buffaloes still “haven’t even played our best game.” Meanwhile, Arizona State reached its highest win total since 2021 on Saturday night after storming to a 21-0 first-half lead and holding off No. 16 Kansas State after halftime in a 24-14 road win, fueled by the aerial connection between Sam Leavitt (275 passing yards, three touchdowns) and Jordyn Tyson (12 catches, 176 yards, two touchdowns).
The successes at Colorado and Arizona State are a credit to the respective coaching jobs Sanders and Dillingham are executing. They’re also a credit to the concept that there remain many different paths to winning in a seemingly homogenized era of college football dominated by NIL, the transfer portal and the rest. Through 12 weeks, Colorado and Arizona State represent two of the sport’s great surprises this fall, and there are perhaps no two people more acutely aware of the doubters than the coaches leading this pair of impressive turnarounds in 2024.
“We were a three-win team twice,” Dillingham said Saturday night. “We were under NCAA sanctions. Most head coaches, to be brutally honest, you get fired if you take a job under sanctions. You don’t survive. You’re hired to be fired. That’s the nature of the beast. And right now we’re sitting here at 8-2 and couldn’t be prouder.” — Eli Lederman
South Carolina is clearly the nation’s best three-loss team
Shane Beamer’s team is not part of the logjam atop the SEC. The Gamecocks are not in the College Football Playoff mix, essentially eliminated Oct. 12 when they couldn’t hold a fourth-quarter lead at Alabama or tie the score in the closing minute. But since falling to 3-3 in Tuscaloosa, South Carolina has won four straight and continued to be one of the most consistently compelling squads on Saturdays.
After riding Kyle Kennard and the defense to wins over Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt, South Carolina needed the offense to outlast Missouri, going 70 yards in 47 seconds to score the winning touchdown with 15 seconds left. Redshirt freshman LaNorris Sellers is blossoming into one of the nation’s best young quarterbacks, as he set career highs for passing yards (353) and passing touchdowns (five) against Missouri. South Carolina has defeated three straight AP-ranked opponents for the first time in team history.
“We’re on the right track,” Beamer said. “The young players we have in this program right now, the quarterback, Dylan [Stewart]. You talk about the recruits that are here tonight, the ones that are committed to us. The best days of South Carolina football are right in front of us.”
There will be some what-ifs for the Gamecocks, especially in their losses to LSU and Alabama. But after a 5-7 season last fall, Beamer has recaptured his big-game magic and built a program that no opponent should want to face right now. — Adam Rittenberg
A resolute Billy Napier and his Florida team just keep getting back up
When it starts to go bad for a coach in the SEC, especially one who’s in his third season and has yet to manage a winning record, it’s usually like a two-ton truck cresting over an icy slope.
There’s no stopping the slide.
Even with the recent and dreaded vote of confidence for Florida’s Billy Napier, there are no guarantees about his future. But nobody would have predicted he had any future at Florida two months ago after an ugly home loss to Texas A&M, two weeks removed from a 41-17 beatdown by Miami at home. The speculation late that night was that Napier might be out as early as the next morning.
But he had just enough support in key areas to hang on, and most importantly, the players in his locker room still believed in him. And here we are, with two weeks left in the regular season, and the Gators are one win away from bowl eligibility after taking down LSU 27-16 at home Saturday. Another huge opportunity awaits this weekend when No. 11 Ole Miss visits the Swamp.
The Gators (5-5) have been resilient, just like their coach, and responded from a 49-17 blowout loss at Texas to play one of their most complete games of the season at home against LSU. Simply making a bowl game is hardly the standard at Florida, but the way Napier has kept his team together, continued to develop young quarterback DJ Lagway and gone about his business with accountability, humility and a quiet confidence is proof he deserves a fourth season to show he can get this program to that standard.
It’s time to get behind Napier and quit questioning him. It’s clear the Gators have a talented nucleus of younger players and that those players have their coach’s back. — Chris Low
Louisville … what are you doing?
Stanford vs. Louisville was an inconsequential game that should have flown under the radar, regardless of the result. And while the outcome — a Stanford win that ended a six-game losing streak — was a significant upset, it’s the way it happened that deserves some added attention. It might be the most improbable way a team has lost a game all season. Let’s dive in.
After trailing 35-21 in the fourth quarter, Stanford scored touchdowns with 6:37 left and 45 seconds left to cut the deficit to 35-34. At this point, I thought Stanford coach Troy Taylor, a coach who once went an entire high school season without punting, would go for the win with a 2-point conversion try. He did not. Tie score.
On the ensuing kickoff, Louisville opted against taking the ball at the 25-yard line and returned it to the 19. After a spike, a deep shot, a short pass and another deep shot all fail, Stanford took possession at its 45 with 4 seconds left. Overtime felt inevitable. Wrong.
Stanford completed a 1-yard pass only to be gifted 15 yards by an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty by Louisville, giving the Cardinal a chance to win the game on a 57-yard field goal attempt. Improbable, still. So, what does Louisville do: jumps offside to make the kick easier. And Stanford’s Emmet Kenney took advantage, making a 52-yard field goal as time expired.
An all-time collapse. — Kyle Bonagura
Kennesaw State’s Bohannon shows class on way out
Last weekend, Kennesaw State fired coach Brian Bohannon, who helped build the program from scratch nine years ago, then ushered it from the FCS into the FBS this season. That firing didn’t stop the former FCS Coach of the Year from supporting his players before its game Saturday against Sam Houston.
In a video posted by a Kennesaw State football alum, Bohannon showed up to the team’s pregame walk to the stadium and gave the players hugs and high-fives as they walked by.
The Owls ultimately lost in overtime to fall to 1-9 but showed fight against the Bearkats, who remain in contention for the Conference USA title.
Despite being fired, Bohannon should be revered in Kennesaw for taking the Owls to the FCS playoffs four times, for elevating the program to the FBS — and for the way he graciously exited. — Jake Trotter
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Emily Kaplan, ESPN
As the New York Rangers and Igor Shesterkin‘s camp negotiate for a new contract, the goalie doesn’t want to talk about what’s at stake — though everyone else around the league does. According to sources, Shesterkin declined an eight-year, $88 million offer at the start of the season, which would have made him the highest paid goalie in NHL history.
“He’s special,” Detroit Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said on Oct. 14, when Shesterkin stopped 31 shots in a 4-1 win. “I can see why he turned down the 88 [million dollars]. Good agent.”
Five nights later, Shesterkin was even better, turning away 34 of 35 shots against the high-powered Toronto Maple Leafs.
“You can see why he’s going to be the highest-paid goalie in the league,” Toronto’s veteran goalie, Anthony Stolarz, said after the game. “Hats off to him.”
Even after Shesterkin allowed four goals through two periods against the rival Washington Capitals on Oct. 29, his opponents were feeling stymied. Said Capitals assistant Scott Allen ahead of the third period: “You see why he’s asking for $13 million, or whatever it is by now.”
The entire league seems to agree that Shesterkin, 28, is among its top goalies and deserves to be paid as such. But how much should a goalie make in today’s NHL? That might be one of the toughest questions to answer in the league.
JEREMY SWAYMAN AND the Boston Bruins ended a summerlong standoff when he signed an eight-year, $66 million contract ($8.25 million in average annual value) ahead of the season opener. Shortly after, the Dallas Stars’ Jake Oettinger signed an identical deal. They both match what the New York Islanders and Ilya Sorokin agreed to in 2023, and are roughly around what the NHL’s current save percentage leader Connor Hellebuyck ($8.5 million AAV) signed for in 2023 on a seven-year deal.
Starting next season, eight goalies will make at least $7 million. By contrast, 107 skaters will be at or above that mark — with 11 making at least $11 million.
“I think we’re in a decent place, [goalies] are now making great money, but it’s also not superstar money,” one starting goaltender said. “It just shows you how the league views our position. GMs don’t want to make goalies the highest-paid players, but I think lots of guys could make a good argument.”
Star forwards play roughly a third of the game. Star defensemen, at best, skate for half. Their performance can vary based on linemates, matchups and a variety of other nuances. A goaltender is in net (practically) the entire 60 minutes, alone in the crease. But even as it is the most isolated position, front office executives say goaltending is the hardest to evaluate — and therefore compensate.
“Agents want to do apples to oranges comparisons when it comes to goaltenders,” one front office executive said. “We have comps for top centers. Comps for top-four defensemen. Comps for goaltenders are way more complicated.”
Carolina GM Eric Tulsky, who comes from an analytics background, explained how slim the margins are.
“A lot of what makes goaltending hard is that a guy who stops 92% of shots is one of the best goalies in the world,” Tulsky said. “A guy who stops 91% is kind of average. And the difference between those is not very big. You watch a guy face 500 or 1,000 shots, and he might stop 91 or 92% by chance. It takes a lot of time to know for sure that this is a guy that is going to stop 91 or 92% day after day.”
The core argument for not giving goalie superstar contracts tend to center around this uncertainty, posed by one front office executive: “How many mega goalie contracts age well?”
Plus, there’s proof of concept that it’s not always necessary to have one goalie on a big contract.
The Florida Panthers just won a Stanley Cup with the league’s highest-paid active goaltender, Sergei Bobrovsky ($10 million cap hit). Florida spends more on goaltending than any other team. Backup Spencer Knight makes $4.5 million while Florida boasts the league’s only “Goaltending Excellence Department” — which includes four coaches/executives dedicated to the position.
But over the past 10 years, there have also been two Stanley Cup winners with starting goaltenders making the league minimum (Jordan Binnington in 2018, Matt Murray in 2016) while the Golden Knights won in 2023 with Adin Hill earning just $2.175 million, which represented less than 3% of their salary cap.
The theme? “There’s not one right way to do it,” Blackhawks GM Kyle Davidson said. “I don’t think there’s a hard and fast way anyone thinks about spending on goaltending. It probably just depends on what you have on your team.”
IN SURVEYING 12 high-ranking team executives about philosophies in paying goaltending, a common theme emerged, summed up by one GM: “The value of a goaltender is based on how your team is built, rather than his talent.”
One front office executive believed that “if you put Andrei Vasilevskiy on 10 different teams, you’d have 10 different save percentages.”
Most executives deferred to team construction. One GM cited Vegas as a team that was strong down the middle and had an excellent defensive core. “They can get away with average goaltending,” he said.
But poor goaltending can derail a team quickly. “Your 5-on-5 game might be good,” Predators GM Barry Trotz said. “But if you have weak goaltending, that doesn’t allow you to go on any streaks.”
The biggest issue for most front offices is projection on goalie development. It’s why a team like Philadelphia, looking for its goaltender of the future, is hedging its bets. The Flyers are carrying three goalies aged 22-27, and drafted another two in 2023.
“I think people have the idea that goalies peak really late,” one GM said. “I’m not sure I believe that. I don’t think it takes time for the goalie to develop; I think it takes time for teams to say, ‘Wait, this goalie is really good.'”
By then, the goalie might be past his physical prime, hence the risks of a long-term deal. One front office executive who just signed a goalie to a max term said he’s confident, based on that goalie’s pedigree and work ethic, that years 1-5 will go great. After that, the team might need security to cover for potential decline.
Those in the goaltending union often claim their position is both misunderstood and scapegoated. Some agents said in conversation with front office executives, they’ve heard phrases such as “goaltending is a crapshoot,” or “I don’t understand goaltending.”
“Confidence in a goalie from management can be fleeting,” one high-profile goalie agent said. “There’s not a ton of patience. If the season isn’t going well, pressure is on the goalie right away.”
Ray Petkau, who represents Hellebuyck and several other goalies, said he believes goaltending can be misunderstood by some in the analytics community. For example, several front office executives cited Goals Saved Above Expected as a go-to stat for evaluation. Petkau said that one doesn’t tell the whole story.
“If a goal is deflected by an opposing player 2 feet in front of the net, it’s assigned X amount of value. But if a shot is deflected off the goalie’s defenseman, that’s not considered the same way by some of the groups providing public analytics information. Some say it averages out over time, but they don’t take into account that some teams have more defensemen who have a habit of blocking off their stick.”
Petkau prefers performance when facing high-danger chances as a stronger stat for evaluation, but that too has variables that can’t be controlled by the goalie. He also said goalies’ strengths should mesh with a team’s needs. For example, if a goalie isn’t great with rush chances, he shouldn’t go to a team that allows a lot.
THE CLIMATE ISN’T going to get any easier for goalies. League average save percentage has dipped in each of the past nine seasons, and we’re trending for the lowest number (.901) since 2005-06. Tulsky sees a trend of offensive creativity, specifically with more East-West movement and an increase in backdoor plays.
“The game’s getting faster, people are getting stronger, and so it all happens that much quicker,” Tulsky said. “When you’re in a position where your job is to react, that makes it much harder.”
Another leaguewide trend: there are now fewer Shesterkins — obvious No. 1 workhorses — and more incidents of goaltending by committee.
From 2010-2019, the league averaged 20.4 goalies per season who started at least 50 games. Over the past three seasons, that number is now 14.3.
Consider the New Jersey Devils, who needed an upgrade in net for this season. GM Tom Fitzgerald determined it was best to get a combination of goaltenders making less than $8 million versus having one make $8 million and another at the league minimum. The Devils’ new tandem is Jacob Markstrom and Jake Allen, both acquired via trade, with their former teams retaining salary.
“Other goalies we looked at, some were going to be free agents,” Fitzgerald said. “You just don’t know what they were going to be priced at with the cap going up.”
Cost certainty is huge in today’s NHL, where everyone knows the salary cap is going up after several stagnant years — but nobody knows exactly by how much and how quickly.
That’s what makes contracts in general difficult right now. Many agents are focused on percentage of the cap. The three highest players this season, Auston Matthews, Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid, are in the 15-16% range. According to sources, the argument by Shesterkin’s camp is that he is the team’s most important player, so he should be the top-paid player on the team. Currently, that’s winger Artemi Panarin at $11.64 million.
The Rangers, in contrast, need to account for future contracts (winger Alexis Lafreniere just resigned at a $7.45 million annual cap hit, and defenseman K’Andre Miller is due). New York can also offer something no other team can: an eighth year. That means if Shesterkin hit the open market, other teams would have to ante up the AAV to match New York’s total value.
Only Vasilevskiy and Bobrovsky have come close to the record $10.5 million AAV Carey Price earned on an eight-year deal, which kicked in during the 2018-19 season, when Price was 31. Price played only two full seasons on the deal. He has been on long-term injured reserve for most of the past three seasons.
Since there are only so many goalie jobs, there are fewer opportunities to reset the market. Hellebuyck could have in 2024, but instead took less to stay in Winnipeg, a place where he felt comfortable and a team he believed could win with.
That’s why the entire league — and specifically the goaltending union — is waiting for resolution on Shesterkin. He could help shape the future of the position — resetting the market for the next generation.
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Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior Writer
Wisconsin fired offensive coordinator Phil Longo on Sunday, a day after the Badgers’ 16-13 home loss to No. 1 Oregon.
In a statement, Badgers coach Luke Fickell thanked Longo for his two seasons with the program, while adding, “We are not where we need to be and believe this decision is in the best interest of the team.”
Wisconsin ranks 97th nationally in scoring and 102nd in passing while operating an Air Raid-style offense that Longo brought with him from North Carolina and other stops.
The Badgers, who lost starting quarterback Tyler Van Dyke to a season-ending injury Sept. 14, had only three points and 88 yards in the second half against Oregon, which rallied from a 13-6 deficit entering the fourth quarter.
Wisconsin ranked 101st nationally in scoring in Longo’s 23 games as coordinator and failed to eclipse 13 points on its current three-game losing streak. Quarterback Braedyn Locke had only 96 passing yards against the Ducks.
Fickell did not immediately announce an interim coordinator for Wisconsin’s final regular-season games against Nebraska and Minnesota.
Fickell had long targeted Longo for a coordinator role, going back to his time as Cincinnati’s coach. Longo, 56, oversaw productive offenses at Ole Miss, North Carolina, Sam Houston State and other spots but never consistently got traction at a Wisconsin program that had operated dramatically differently on offense before his arrival.
“This team still has a lot in front of us and I am committed to doing everything we can to close out this season with success,” Fickell said in his statement.
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