Bernier Motown Bound

Follow the bouncing Bernier!

For the amount of hype and expectation there was surrounding the arrival of Jonathan Bernier into the NHL, he has sure bounced around a lot between teams, most recently signing with the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday.  Bernier signed a 3-year, $9 million deal, which could be quite the bargain, moving forward.

Bernier had a pretty good thing going with the Colorado Avalanche, behind Semyon Varlamov in the 2018 season, playing in 37 games and registering 19 wins and 43 points in the process, ranking him 29th among all goalies in hockey pool scoring.  Surely, his numbers and his experience was going to warrant him finding a spot that could possibly give him more opportunity and pay him at the same time and the Red Wings could be a good fit for him.

Jimmy Howard currently resides as the number one guy in Detroit, but that position will definitely be challenged by Bernier, much as it was by Petr Mrazek previously, but Howard did withstand that challenge last season, but it's a whole new ballgame now.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Henrik Zetterberg	6.083	Mike Green	5.375	Jimmy Howard	5.292
Frans Nielsen	5.250	Danny DeKeyser	5.000	Jonathan Bernier	3.000
Gustav Nyquist	4.750	Niklas Kronwall	4.750
Justin Abdelkader	4.250	Jonathan Ericsson	4.250
Johan Franzen	3.955	Trevor Daley	3.178
Darren Helm	3.850	Nick Jensen	0.813
Thomas Vanek	3.000	Brian Lashoff	0.650
Luke Glendening	1.800
Tyler Bertuzzi	1.400
Martin Frk	1.050
Michael Rasmussen	0.925
Dylan Sadowy	0.881
Evgeny Svechnikov	0.863
Luke Witkowski	0.750
Dominic Turgeon	0.662

Detroit has been busy already, re-signing Mike Green and adding Thomas Vanek, so the Red Wings might feel a little more confident heading into the dog days of the summer.  The Wings are also not quite as strapped for cap space as they once were, still holding onto $5.8 million in space, even before we utilize the LTIR relief that they can get from Johan Franzen and his career-ending injury.  The Wings will likely be looking to add more sustainable depth, both up front and on the blueline with that extra cash, but it will be a scramble to get the job done.