St. Louis Blues sign backup goaltender Ty Conklin
The Blues have signed backup goalie Ty Conklin to a two-year contract.
Conklin, 33, will earn an average of $1.3 million as the backup to starter Chris Mason.
“We took care of a need,” Blues President John Davidson said. “Ty is very excited to be a part of the Blues.”
Conklin went 25-11-2 with a 2.59 goals-against average and a .909 save-percentage last season with the Detroit Red Wings. In his 25 victories, Conklin had six shutouts.
Detroit had mild interest in re-signing Conklin, but his agent, Kurt Overhardt, informed the Red Wings that Conklin could likely double his $750,000 salary elsewhere. At that projected price, the Red Wings weren’t interested, partly because they were only $4 million under the cap before today and partly because they didn’t want to upstage starter Chris Osgood, who is making $1.4 million per season.
I’ve talked to reporters in Detroit today who say that St. Louis is a good fit for Conklin. He’s a character guy who can challenge for the starting job. One reporter told me that there was sentiment in Detroit for Conklin to start ahead of Osgood in the playoffs.
For more information, click here for Conklin’s bio . . .
JR
JR
We’ve cloned JR?! That’s the best news of the day!
Glad to see a decent backup for under $1.5m. Now we just got to get that last defender (Polak or otherwise).
Polak wants too much..lets go with Zubov(assuming he’s healthy) or Schneider. They are both offensive defensemen and they have been around with winning teams.
Atta Boy, Johnny D.!!!
Finally a GT with a winning record. Look out Detroit, here we come. Now all the team needs is a pp leader and goal scorer, power foward. Could it be Gaborik?
Busted, your an idoit. We have no neeed, or room, in our forward positions for Gaborik or anyone else for that matter. We are great up front 2 30+ goal scorers 4 or 5 20+ goal scorers and lots of 15+ goal scorers for depth. JD and Co. did a great job addressing our biggest need goaltenting now we need point man for the power play. Zubov and Schneider would be ok but another name thats not mentioned and may be cheeper with the addition of Bowmeister is Acoin.