James Reimer traded to the San Jose Sharks

James Reimer and Jeremy Morin have been traded to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for Alex Stalock, Ben Smith and a conditional fourth-round pick in 2018 (becomes a third if SJ reaches the 2016 Stanley Cup Finals).

First thing’s first: Best of luck in San Jose, James Reimer, and as the person primarily responsible for Leafs fans’ only playoff memories of the last 11-going-on-12 years — thank you.

As for a first reaction to the trade: Well, it’s a return reflective of the limited market for goalies. Remove the expiring contracts coming back and it boils down to a conditional fourth rounder in 2018 in exchange for the Leafs’ best goalie. It’s underwhelming given Reimer has often done an underappreciated job for this franchise and was well liked by the fan base (for the most part), but the fact of the matter is that you’re working with a market of one or two playoff teams — in this case likely San Jose and St. Louis, the latter of which traded for Anders Nilsson last night for a fifth rounder and a goalie prospect — when it comes to trading a league-average, rental goaltender.

Reimer’s save percentage, for several months this season at or near the top of the league, had recently dropped to 17th in the NHL (.918) among goaltenders with more than 750 shots faced. That’s partly attributable to the team getting considerably worse in the last month between injuries and trades, but his play has also taken a step back of late. Should the Leafs have dealt Reimer a little earlier this season? It’s hard to know if it was possible or would’ve helped or not, given the limited goalie market.

James Reimer’s Recent Games

Opp	GA	SA	SV	SV%
OTT	3	8	5	0.625
CGY	4	22	18	0.818
VAN	2	19	17	0.895
CHI	7	32	25	0.781
PHI	2	15	13	0.867
NSH	3	26	23	0.885

As Martin Jones’ backup, Alex Stalock has been a disappointment for the Sharks this season with a .884 save percentage in 13 starts. The 28-year-old’s best season came in 2013-14, when he was a .932 goalie over 24 starts, but he’s been around .900 or below since.

Between Jonathan Bernier and Alex Stalock, the Leafs now have two goalies in the bottom five among the 70 to face more than 100 shots this season. Stalock is dead last, Bernier is 66th, and Reimer is 28th (as mentioned, Reimer moves up to 17th among goalies to face more than 750 shots).

NHL Goalies by 2015-16 Save Percentage

minimum 100 saves faced, toggle for more results

	Goalie	Team	Saves	Shots Against	Save Percentage
1	Matt Murray	PIT	105	112	0.938
2	Carey Price	MON	341	365	0.934
3	Thomas Greiss	NYI	722	776	0.93
4	Al Montoya	FLA	399	429	0.93
5	Robin Lehner	BUF	399	429	0.93
6	Brian Elliott	STL	855	920	0.929
7	Corey Crawford	CHI	1,411	1,521	0.928
8	Petr Mrazek	DET	1,087	1,171	0.928
9	Michal Neuvirth	PHI	715	771	0.927
10	Jhonas Enroth	LA	300	324	0.926
11	Philipp Grubauer	WAS	325	351	0.926
12	Cory Schneider	NJ	1,377	1,489	0.925
13	Roberto Luongo	FLA	1,248	1,349	0.925
14	Braden Holtby	WAS	1,280	1,386	0.924
15	Ben Bishop	TB	1,143	1,237	0.924
16	Jake Allen	STL	864	936	0.923
17	Henrik Lundqvist	NYR	1,387	1,502	0.923
18	Jonathan Quick	LA	1,224	1,328	0.922
19	Carter Hutton	NSH	284	308	0.922
20	Reto Berra	COL	345	374	0.922
21	Jaroslav Halak	NYI	828	900	0.92
22	Frederik Andersen	ANH	783	851	0.92
23	Marc-Andre Fleury	PIT	1,203	1,309	0.919
24	Joonas Korpisalo	CLS	628	683	0.919
25	Darcy Kuemper	MIN	393	428	0.918
26	Tuukka Rask	BOS	1,296	1,411	0.918
27	Connor Hellebuyck	WPG	627	683	0.918
28	James Reimer	TOR	845	920	0.918
29	Jeff Zatkoff	PIT	352	384	0.917
30	Calvin Pickard	COL	333	363	0.917
31	Ryan Miller	VAN	1,142	1,246	0.917
32	Jacob Markstrom	VAN	564	615	0.917
33	Chad Johnson	BUF	854	931	0.917
34	John Gibson	ANH	563	614	0.917
35	Scott Darling	CHI	386	421	0.917
36	Devan Dubnyk	MIN	1,243	1,355	0.917
37	Craig Anderson	OTT	1,475	1,608	0.917
38	Martin Jones	SJ	1,263	1,379	0.916
39	Linus Ullmark	BUF	495	541	0.915
40	Steve Mason	PHI	1,022	1,117	0.915
41	Garret Sparks	TOR	118	129	0.915
42	Semyon Varlamov	COL	1,143	1,249	0.915
43	Louis Domingue	ARI	749	820	0.913
44	Cam Talbot	EDM	1,080	1,184	0.912
45	Keith Kinkaid	NJ	279	306	0.912
46	Sergei Bobrovsky	CLS	686	753	0.911
47	Andrei Vasilevskiy	TB	417	458	0.91
48	Karri Ramo	CGY	940	1,034	0.909
49	Jonas Gustavsson	BOS	448	493	0.909
50	Anton Khudobin	ANH	157	173	0.908
51	Pekka Rinne	NSH	1,203	1,325	0.908
52	Michael Hutchinson	WPG	520	573	0.908
53	Cam Ward	CAR	923	1,016	0.908
54	Antti Raanta	NYR	264	291	0.907
55	Kari Lehtonen	DAL	712	786	0.906
56	Jimmy Howard	DET	572	631	0.906
57	Mike Condon	MON	898	993	0.904
58	Antti Niemi	DAL	928	1,026	0.904
59	Ondrej Pavelec	WPG	458	508	0.902
60	Eddie Lack	CAR	585	649	0.901
61	Anders Nilsson	EDM	671	745	0.901
62	Ben Scrivens	MON	227	252	0.901
63	Mike Smith	ARI	539	598	0.901
64	Joni Ortio	CGY	142	158	0.899
65	Andrew Hammond	OTT	346	385	0.899
66	Jonathan Bernier	TOR	681	758	0.898
67	Curtis McElhinney	CLS	341	381	0.895
68	Anders Lindback	ARI	396	443	0.894
69	Jonas Hiller	CGY	499	563	0.886
70	Alex Stalock	SJ/TOR	252	285	0.884

Ben Smith and Stalock are both UFAs at season’s end.  The 27-year-old Smith was a useful depth forward for Chicago once upon a time with a 14-goal, 26-point season in 2013-14, but he’s mostly spent his time in the AHL since. Smith carries a cap hit of $1,500,000, $950,000 of which can be buried in the AHL. The Sharks needed to move Smith in this deal to open up the cap space for Reimer as they were right up against the cap ceiling. 

Acquired in the one-for-one Richard Panik trade, Jeremy Morin will be headed to San Jose alongside Reimer in the deal to make the Standard Player Contracts line up. After a promising start in a Marlie uniform (five points in six games), he has just one point his last seven games and has been scratched on four occasions. He’s an RFA at season’s end and wasn’t in the team’s long-term plans.

Even though the feeling wasn’t always reciprocated under the prior management regime, Reimer never wavered in his desire to be in Toronto. Lou Lamoriello has assessed neither Reimer or Jonathan Bernier are likely to be the long-term solution in net, and it looks like Bernier has zero suitors at the moment. In the Leafs‘ current position in their rebuild, Lamoriello would be remiss not to collect on whatever return he can garner for Reimer — and this is certainly a “whatever you can get” return. If there’s mutual interest, the two sides could revisit Reimer’s contract demands in July when he becomes a UFA.

In the meantime, it sounds like we’ll get a few looks at the likes of Garret Sparks and/or Antoine Bibeau as management looks to evaluate their options within the organization at the position.

Lou Lamoriello: We need to take a look at our minor-league goaltenders who are playing extremely well. As you all know, we have the best team, in our opinion, in the American Hockey League and we’ve had the best tandem there. We have to take a look at Garret Sparks right now. How he performed when he did come up earlier – it’s something that’s the real thing. We’re going to have to find out about Bibeau. These are all things that are in the process and you can’t do it when you have two goaltenders here in the NHL. I can remember back many years ago when we had to find out about a goaltender in the minors in New Jersey and it seemed to work out pretty well. You never know unless they’re given the opportunity. The only way you get an opportunity is if there’s a space available for that. The timing is you go as far as you can until you have to do that, especially when you have a quality player and a quality person as we had in Reimer. This is the best that could come about at this point.

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The technical details below:

https://twitter.com/generalfanager/status/703668318343983104

No salary retention in SJ/TOR deal

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) February 27, 2016

https://twitter.com/generalfanager/status/703662406061441024

Ben Smith Career Stats:

Season	Team	Lge	GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
2006-07	Boston College	H-East	42	10	8	18	10
2007-08	Boston College	H-East	44	25	25	50	12
2008-09	Boston College	H-East	37	6	11	17	6
2009-10	Boston College	H-East	42	16	21	37	8
2010-11	Rockford IceHogs	AHL	63	19	12	31	16
2010-11	Chicago Blackhawks	NHL	6	1	0	1	0
2011-12	Chicago Blackhawks	NHL	13	2	0	2	0
2011-12	Rockford IceHogs	AHL	38	15	16	31	10
2012-13	Rockford IceHogs	AHL	54	27	20	47	13
2012-13	Chicago Blackhawks	NHL	1	1	0	1	0
2013-14	Chicago Blackhawks	NHL	75	14	12	26	2
2014-15	Chicago Blackhawks	NHL	61	5	4	9	2
2014-15	San Jose Sharks	NHL	19	2	3	5	0
2015-16	San Jose Sharks*	NHL	6	0	0	0	0
2015-16	San Jose Barracuda	AHL	14	8	2	10	4
NHL Totals			181	25	19	44	4

Alex Stalock Career Stats:

Season	Team	Lge	GP	A	PIM	Min	GA	SO	GAA	W	L	T	Svs	Pct
2006-07	U. of Minnesota-Duluth	WCHA	23	4	12	1364	76	1	3.34	5	14	3	560	0.881
2007-08	U. of Minnesota-Duluth	WCHA	36	2	8	2170	85	3	2.35	13	17	6	899	0.914
2008-09	U. of Minnesota-Duluth	WCHA	42	1	10	2534	90	5	2.13	21	13	8	1094	0.924
2009-10	Worcester Sharks	AHL	61	3	4	3534	155	4	2.63	39	19	2	1522	0.908
2010-11	Worcester Sharks	AHL	41	3	2	2397	105	0	2.63	19	17	4	1025	0.907
2010-11	San Jose Sharks	NHL	1	0	0	30	0	0	0	1	0	0	9	1
2011-12	Worcester Sharks	AHL	2	0	0	119	5	0	2.51	1	1	0	50	0.909
2011-12	Stockton Thunder	ECHL	6	0	0	360	17	0	2.83	5	1	0	180	0.914
2011-12	Peoria Rivermen	AHL	3	0	0	106	2	1	1.13	2	0	0	53	0.964
2012-13	Worcester Sharks	AHL	38	1	6	2281	99	2	2.6	17	16	4	1028	0.912
2012-13	San Jose Sharks	NHL	2	0	0	42	2	0	2.86	0	0	1	11	0.846
2013-14	San Jose Sharks	NHL	24	0	2	1252	39	2	1.87	12	5	2	532	0.932
2014-15	San Jose Sharks	NHL	22	0	2	1237	54	2	2.62	8	9	2	499	0.902
2015-16	San Jose Barracuda	AHL	2	0	0	122	4	0	1.96	2	0	0	53	0.93
2015-16	San Jose Sharks	NHL	13	1	0	670	33	0	2.94	3	5	0	252	0.884

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