How Much Should the Leafs Pay Jonathan Bernier?

On Wednesday both the Maple Leafs and Jonathan Bernier submitted their offers to an arbitrator. In a rare move, the Leafs elected to go to arbitration to negotiate a new contract with their number 1 goaltender. According to Elliotte Friedman, the Leafs are offering $2.89 million and Bernier is asking $5.1 million. Last season, Bernier had a salary of $3.4 million but a cap hit of just $2.9 million.

Arbitration takes into account comparables let's take a look at some comparibles and see where we can expect the salary to be. Remember, since the Leafs elected to go to arbitration, once the arbitrator makes his ruling, the Leafs have to take it.

Over his 2 seasons in Toronto, Bernier is 47-47-14 in 104 starts with a 2.78 GAA and a .920 sv%. The most important goaltending stat for me is save percentage. The Leafs gave up an egregious amount of shots over Bernier's tenure, so the fact that he's at .920 is pretty good. There were 2 goalies that had a .920 sv% last season (that played more than 10 games): Ondrej Pavelec and Marc-Andre Fleury. Next season, Pavelec will have a salary of $4.25 million with a cap hit of $3.9 million, whereas Fleury has a salary and cap hit of $5.75 million.

I'm more inclined to compare Bernier to Pavelec because their numbers are closer. Over the last 2 seasons, Pavelec is 44-42-15 in 107 starts with a 2.67 GAA and a .910 sv%. As you can see, Bernier's numbers (except GAA) are slightly better than Pavelec's, but they are relatively close. With that being said, I would expect Bernier to get a slightly higher contract than Pavelec, somewhere around $4.5 million.

Apparently the word is Bernier is looking for a longer term contract, and the Leafs want a similar contract as they gave Kadri. They want Bernier to prove his worth. Obviously, the Leafs are thinking long term here. Bernier will be 27 heading into this season, by the time the Leafs are competitive again Bernier could be 31 or 32. The Leafs don't want to handcuff themselves with long term deals like they did with Kessel, Clarkson, Lupul, and Phaneuf. There is some risk here, after next season, Bernier becomes a UFA, if the Leafs choose to lock up Bernier on a short-term contract, they risk him leaving for nothing, however, if they give him a long-term deal, it could handcuff them in the future.

If I'm Lamoriello, I'm giving Bernier a 3-year deal. Three years isn't a long contract, but it's not a short one either. If Bernier doesn't work out, that's fine, the Leafs are rebuilding and will not be good anyways, if he works out, great, by then the Leafs should be competing for a playoff spot and Bernier can help the Leafs moving forward. The two parties meet with the arbitrator on Friday, we should know the decision by the weekend.