Pekka Rinne To Become Highest Paid NHL Goaltender

Nashville Predators goaltender Pekka Rinne has signed a 7 year $49 million contract extension that will make him the highest paid player at his position next season. This certainly can't be considered a bargain price, but it is a fair price because you can easily argue that he is the best young goaltender in the NHL. $7M per season only puts him slightly ahead of Henrik Lundqvist. Unlike Bryzgalov, this contract is not front loaded, with Ilya making $10M this season and $1.2M in the last year. Rinne will make $7M in the 7th year of this deal. The only potential downside of the deal is that it will eat up a significant portion of Nashville's limited budget, with Ryan Suter and Shea Weber still to be signed long-term. Suter and Weber make Rinne better. Brodeur was not as good without Stevens and Neidermayer.

Here's the top ten list of NHL goalie salary cap hits for the 2011/12 season according to capgeek.

Rank		Player	Team	Cap hit
1	.	Lundqvist, Henrik	NYR	6,875,000
2	.	Ward, Cam	CAR	6,300,000
3	.	Miller, Ryan	BUF	6,250,000
4	.	Backstrom, Niklas	MIN	6,000,000
5	.	Kiprusoff, Miikka	CGY	5,833,333
6	.	Bryzgalov, Ilya	PHI	5,666,667
7	.	Huet, Cristobal	CHI	5,625,000
8	.	Luongo, Roberto	VAN	5,333,333
9	.	Brodeur, Martin	NJD	5,200,000
10	.	Thomas, Tim	BOS	5,000,000

Last  year's ranking for goalie save percentage was:

RK		PLAYER	TEAM	GP	SVPCT	GAA
1	.	Tim Thomas	BOS	57	0.938	2.00
2	.	Pekka Rinne	NSH	64	0.930	2.12
3	.	Roberto Luongo	VAN	60	0.928	2.11
4	.	Jonas Hiller	ANA	49	0.924	2.56
5	.	Semyon Varlamov	WSH	27	0.924	2.23
6	.	Cam Ward	CAR	74	0.923	2.56
6	.	Carey Price	MTL	72	0.923	2.35
7	.	Henrik Lundqvist	NYR	68	0.923	2.28
9	.	Tomas Vokoun	FLA	57	0.922	2.55
10	.	Ilya Bryzgalov	PHX	68	0.921	2.48