The San Jose Sharks signed goaltender Aaron Dell to a two-year contract extension, which will keep the Airdrie, AB native in teal until 2020. Per team policy, financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, even though they will be available on Cap Friendly within the hour.
On announcing the extension, Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson said:
“Aaron has met every challenge he has faced in his career head-on and our team is a confident group when he’s in the net…. He’s a very popular guy in the dressing room and we feel that Aaron and Martin [Jones] give us one of the top goaltending tandems in the League.”
Dell, who will turn 29 in May, has played in 25 games for the Sharks this season, posting a .912 save percentage, a 2.71 goals against average, and two shutouts. He had a great run of play earlier in the season, but stumbled somewhat when pressed into full time duty while Martin Jones was injured.
The advanced numbers suggest that, on the whole, Dell is not having a great season. Among goalies who have played at least 500 minutes this season (Dell is currently at 1096), only five have posted a lower high danger save percentage than Dell’s 74.56, and the number of GSAA (goals saved above average) is in the red at -3.23. It is important to keep in mind that this is a relatively small sample size, and a string of game like he played in the first half of the season could change those numbers significantly. (Stats per corsica.hockey and hockey-reference.com)
UPDATE: Per Kevin Kurz of the The Athletic, Dell’s contract is $3.8 million, with $2.2 million in 2018-19 and $1.6 million in 2019-20 to average out to $1.9 million salary cap hit.
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