NMSU issues not only in hoops, documents show
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Sara CoelloESPN
New Mexico State University officials have insisted that culture problems in their athletic department were isolated to men’s basketball, but documents obtained by ESPN show an official for the women’s team was found to have sexually harassed a student in the past year, and they reflect at least three other ongoing Title IX investigations involving incidents in the arena that houses athletic offices and an apparent lack of scrutiny in officials’ hiring practices.
All of that is in addition to recent allegations that a former football coach physically abused players under the threat of taking away their scholarships.
NMSU athletics have been under scrutiny since forward Mike Peake shot and killed a University of New Mexico student in what police called self-defense last November. Another investigation followed in February, when a men’s basketball player accused his teammates of a months-long hazing campaign.
Head coach Greg Heiar was fired Feb. 14 after less than a year on the job, and the rest of the men’s basketball season was canceled, but questions linger about both incidents.
The university declined to allow ESPN to interview any school or athletic department officials for this story. School leaders haven’t publicly discussed the situation since mid-February, when then-chancellor Dan Arvizu and athletic director Mario Moccia emphasized that the problems in basketball were not pervasive.
“We have looked and done an expansive review of our programs and everything that I have learned is that our men’s basketball program has been infected — with bad culture, bad behavior,” Arvizu told reporters. “[But] this culture of bad behavior is contained in our men’s basketball, it is not elsewhere.”
However, school records obtained by ESPN under open records laws show that a Title IX investigator took less than a week last year to find that George Ross Jr., the director of operations for women’s basketball, had sexually harassed a student who was working in his office.
The student, who worked as a janitor at the arena, said in her complaint that Ross generally got to his office around 6 a.m., when the building was empty of witnesses. In July 2022, she was vacuuming his office when he asked if she wanted to hang out and began “pushing” to take her out for a beer, according to documents.
The student said she tried to deflect and eventually left to clean a different office, but he followed her there and stood in the doorway, the documents say.
She said Ross told her, “Don’t forget what I said,” then asked three or four more times for a date, according to the documents. The woman felt threatened and told a coworker what happened, and that person took the story to the Title IX office on July 14.
In a follow-up letter, Title IX deputy coordinator Annamarie DeLovato wrote that Ross described the interaction as well-intended “small talk.” In her finding of responsibility, DeLovato gave Ross a warning and, four days after opening the case, issued a no-contact order that barred him from interacting with the student.
Notes from the case file indicate an unidentified person interviewed in the case said Ross’ behavior should prevent him from coaching or being around other women.
But even as DeLovato forbade Ross from speaking to the student and forced him to review basic staff conduct rules, she wrote in her report that the action didn’t rise to the level of violating NMSU’s nondiscrimination policy. That policy specifies that a single act of harassment is serious enough to be considered a violation, and includes harassment that’s both “unwelcome” and “of a sexual nature.”
Ross continues in his job with the women’s team. He did not respond to efforts by ESPN to reach him directly by email and phone.
Gaylene Fasenko, chairperson of the school’s faculty senate, said the allegation and that Ross was not disciplined beyond the warning was “concerning.”
The faculty senate has a hand in writing the administrative rules and is constantly reevaluating them, Fasenko said, but she would not say if the body is discussing any changes to the disciplinary standards cited by DeLovato.
NMSU’s Title IX office is investigating three other complaints of sexual harassment or abuse stemming from reported incidents at the address for Pan American Center, which houses the basketball arena and athletic department offices, according to documents. The school declined to release any details on the incidents to ESPN, including whether they involve athletes or athletic department staff, because the cases are ongoing.
As recently as March 2020, the department dealt with another investigation, this one into then-head football coach Doug Martin. A complaint to the state attorney general alleged that Martin made players, even injured ones, practice in dangerous conditions by threatening to revoke their scholarships.
Martin denied the allegation, and the school cleared him of wrongdoing, but his contract was not renewed after the 2021 season.
Heiar’s tenure was marked by scandal even before the Peake shooting. The first incident, involving one of his earliest hires, came to light before the 2022-23 season started.
After being hired by Heiar in June, defensive analyst Edmond Pryor was arrested in early August at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport upon returning from a team trip. Pryor resigned from New Mexico State on Aug. 22.
According to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, Pryor had been fired from a coaching job at a Chicago community college in 2019 after “suspicious documents,” including fake university transcripts, were found on his work computer.
Pryor was accused of forging documents to help accused criminals expand the range of their electronic monitoring anklets or get charges improperly dropped, according to the sheriff’s office and district attorney.
According to New Mexico State records, Pryor listed “other” as his reason for leaving his job in Chicago and gave the school permission to contact past supervisors.
In an interview, Pryor told ESPN that NMSU never brought up the investigation or the circumstances surrounding his departure. The forgery case against him is still pending, according to court records.
“You know, just because there are allegations against a person … doesn’t mean that person is guilty,” Pryor told ESPN in reference to both his case and the NMSU hazing allegations, which he said he has continued to follow.
The November shooting was preceded by an Oct. 15 scuffle, in which at least one member of the men’s basketball team got involved in a fight with rivals from the University of New Mexico during a football game at NMSU. Video of the scuffle showed Peake on the edges of the skirmish before a police officer separated the handful of people involved.
There’s no record that Las Cruces or campus police investigated the brawl, and authorities noted months later that they were still unsure of who started the fight or what it was about.
About a month later, NMSU traveled to Albuquerque to play New Mexico in men’s basketball. The night before the game, three Aggies players snuck out of their downtown hotel after curfew to confront a UNM player who’d fought Peake the previous month, according to state police investigative records. A few seconds into a three-on-one fight, both Peake and 19-year-old Brandon Travis opened fire. Travis was killed.
The ensuing investigation raised more questions than answers about NMSU’s team management, starting with how the players snuck out unnoticed and how Peake took a gun onto the team bus.
Officials also have not said why players were loaded up and sent back to Las Cruces without telling police — prompting troopers to pull them over on a New Mexico roadside — and why coaches reportedly kept police from questioning the players involved and handled evidence.
The district attorney is still investigating NMSU’s response to the shooting, which New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez has called troubling.
“This was not handled in, let’s say, the usual fashion,” Torrez told KOAT-TV. “I was very troubled by the way in which the institutions and some of the leaders in those institutions sort of handled the situation.”
The only investigation completed so far was by a private law firm hired by NMSU to investigate the school’s response. The firm generated a two-page report with six suggestions for improvement that focused on reinforcing student-athletes’ respect for curfews and travel etiquette. Both that report and the school’s statement of it emphasized that investigators believed the university had fulfilled its legal obligations.
Heiar, who initially told police that he’d “inherited” Peake and advised them to question veteran assistant coaches instead, announced later in November that he took “full responsibility for what happened.” School announcements and records give no indication that Heiar himself faced any discipline in the matter.
The shooting investigation was still ongoing Feb. 10, when a basketball player accused his teammates of sexually abusing him in a months-long hazing campaign. He told campus police three other players pinned him in the locker room, pulled down his pants, slapped his buttocks and touched his scrotum. The abuse had been ongoing since the summer, according to police records, and generally happened in front of the entire team.
As the team traveled to an event later that day, school officials stopped the bus, suspended the season indefinitely and put Heiar on paid administrative leave.
Two players, Deuce Benjamin and Shakiru Odunewu, this week sued school officials, saying coaching staff and administrators failed to act when they reported the behavior. The lawsuit, which named three regents, Heiar and an assistant, and three former players, says the activity went beyond harassment to sexual assault, battery and false imprisonment and that it remains under investigation by police.
“When the behavior goes too far, and crosses the line into non-consensual touching … it is battery and sexual assault,” the complaint reads. “When the behavior continues for months, it cannot be viewed as an initiation rite; instead, it is harassment and abuse. And when coaches and universities do not take adequate action to prevent or stop such behavior, they have failed their student athletes and are complicit in the abuse.”
School officials didn’t publicly outline Heiar’s role in the hazing or response to it, but they fired him within days, with Arvizu saying that the decision stemmed from the hazing incident. The school pledged to investigate other members of the coaching staff, but officials haven’t publicly spoken about the case since February. Arvizu and the university’s board of regents announced April 7 that they had agreed to a “mutual separation,” and former school president Jay Gogue was appointed interim chancellor.
“This separation is truly mutual,” Arvizu was quoted as saying in a school statement.
At their February news conference, still the only time NMSU leaders have addressed the hazing allegation, Arvizu reinforced his continuous praise of athletic director Moccia, who defended the school’s process for hiring coaches since he arrived in 2015.
But ESPN’s review of school documents raises questions about that process.
Chris Jans, Heiar’s immediate predecessor, was successful on the court with a 122-32 overall record. He came to New Mexico State after he was fired by Bowling Green State University in 2015 for allegedly sexually harassing women at a bar near campus. Jans smacked one woman’s buttocks and made lewd comments to other female patrons, a witness said. He apologized after the school fired him.
That incident wasn’t mentioned in NMSU’s hiring paperwork for Jans, according to documents.
Jans, who worked with Heiar at Chipola College in Florida and Wichita State, is among several head coaches that Heiar worked for that left jobs amid accusations of impropriety.
Heiar coached under Will Wade at LSU from 2017 to 2020. Heiar left soon after the school suspended Wade amid allegations that an FBI wiretap caught the coach appearing to make an offer to a recruit.
Heiar worked at Wichita State from 2011 to 2017 under Gregg Marshall, who resigned after several players accused him of physical and verbal abuse in 2020.
Heiar wasn’t publicly implicated in any of his previous bosses’ scandals, but he was arrested in 2008 and charged with driving under the influence after crashing his car while coaching at Chipola College, according to Florida criminal records. He could not be reached by ESPN.
“Coaching hires are not infallible,” Moccia told reporters in February. “There is not a crystal ball underneath my desk.”
The men’s basketball team is set to resume in 2023-24, although virtually the whole team, including Odunewu, Benjamin, Peake, Jaden Alexander, Doctor Bradley, Kyle Feit, DaJuan Gordon, Shahar Lazar, Issa Muhammad and Mady Traoré, has entered the transfer portal.
Benjamin announced his decision to transfer this week, saying on Twitter that his NMSU dreams had “changed into a nightmare” and adding that new coach Jason Hooten had “recently informed me that it would be in my best interest to continue my education and basketball career elsewhere.”
Hooten, who had been the longtime coach at Sam Houston State, said on his arrival that “a new culture needs to be built — a new start and a new beginning.”
Hooten, Moccia and school leaders all declined to answer questions about how, exactly, they plan to do that.
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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