It's no secret that being a goalie in the SHL right now is a tough job, and one that sees a lot less reward than a forward or a defenseman. Any goalie who's been around the league long enough has probably voiced an opinion on the value of TPE for goaltenders, and I know I have, but since that's a problem without an obvious solution and a lot of limitations outside our control, I wanted to address another issue that makes life harder on goalies and teams with good goalies: the limitations on starts for the primary goalie, and the low impact of active goalie cap relief.

82% of the games, 100% of the cap hit:

Per the SHL rulebook, SHL teams are required to start their backup goaltender a minimum of 12 games per regular season, or roughly 18% of the season. This means that teams can expect to see a return value on their primary goaltender only 88% of the time, but a salary cap hit equivalent to a full-time skater of the same TPE tier. Given that TPE already means significantly less for goaltenders than it does for skaters, this only further incentivizes teams to avoid having a top-tier goaltender, as that salary cap money could better serve the team by taking a lower tier goaltender for similar results, and regardless of the TPE tier of the starting goaltender, almost every team in the league uses inactive goaltenders at a low TPE tier as their backup, sacrificing any potential impact a better goaltender might have in order to save cap space (9 backups below 300 TPE and 8 below 500 TPE currently play in the SHL). The rulebook does provide opportunities to reduce the cap hit for having an active player as a backup, provided they play at least 17 games (25% of the season), further reducing the impact of the team's starting goalie, in exchange for cap relief of 50% of the backup's salary, up to $2M. To my knowledge, no teams are actively making use of this cap relief right now, and many have expressed that it simply isn't worth the cost of adding a higher salaried player (if anyone can provide evidence to the contrary, please comment with your findings).

The impact here is obvious: not only can users creating as goalies expect to have a lower impact on their team's success as their teammates, but they can also expect to play 12% fewer games every season while an inactive player takes their spot. If the 12 game minimum rule was ever designed to create a system that supports active players getting games as a backup, it isn't working, and in my opinion it only serves to further reduce the role of goalies in the SHL, one of many reasons so many go inactive after only a few seasons. 

A three-part suggestion: Better cap relief, more starter games, lower cap hit

First, let me express my support for anyone who actually has two active goalies on their roster and wants to give them both the chance to play. The current rule structure doesn't give you any reason to do this other than the goodness of your heart, but it should. If we truly want to provide support for active backups, the cap relief needs to be better. Does anyone really think that a team gets a statistically significant advantage by rotating two active goalies? Are there any metrics to support this at all? Frankly, I'd support a move to give cap relief up to 100% of the backup's cap hit up to $3M (cannot exceed the starter's contract), leaving only the $500k league minimum for a bottom tier player against the cap (or removing backup goalie cap hit altogether for active players or bottom tier IAs). This could allow active players to play for their team in a backup role without feeling like they're only serving to hinder their team's chance at a successful season.

Next up, reducing the minimum start count for inactive backups. Right now, every player on a team except the goalie gets to play every game, and it's very often full of as many active players as possible, so why should an active goalie be forced to miss more than 10% of the season to watch an IA do their job? The SMJHL only has a minimum of 8 games for the backup, and they have a lot more active backups than the SHL does. Any move that reclaims some value for our goalies without hurting anyone else is a good move, and I'd recommend reducing the minimum backup game count to 6 games, or ~9% of the season. This still allows/encourages GMs to rest starters during back to back games, preventing schedules from having an overwhelming impact on team performance, but gives goalies another 9% of the season to play instead of riding the bench. 

Finally, the real hot take: If goalies are widely known to have a lower impact than skaters, and they play fewer games than skaters, then why do we allow their contracts to have a disproportionally high impact on their team's salary cap room? If no changes are made to the existing rules, then I'd propose lowering the cap hit for goalies to 80% of the standard rate, to roughly match the amount of games they can be expected to play. If my suggestion for reducing the minimum start count is implemented as written, I'd instead lower it to 90% of the standard rate, for the same reason. This helps alleviate the "good goalie problem" for cap management that I've heard expressed, and allows teams to actively pursue top tier goalies, and encourage their prospects to earn as much as possible, without worry that they will eat up the limited cap space needed to assemble a competitive team.

Make goalies fun again:

Playing a goalie in the SHL is always going to be an uphill battle as long as FHM has its way, and while I'd love to change that, I know the SHL is largely powerless in that department, and HO doesn't have a lot of options to address that concern. We have plenty of rules in place of our own that contribute to the overall problem, though, and I think there's a lot of room for improvement that will reward our goalies without causing any significant change to the rest of the league. The suggestions above are a few ways I think we could do some good without a lot of change, but I'd also love to hear the thoughts of players around the league (goalies and GMs in particular, but everyone's opinions are welcome).