The Ottawa Senators have had preliminary discussions regarding a contract extension for goaltender Mike Condon, reports Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun. The 26 year old is in the final season of a two year contract worth the league minimum salary of $575K and is set to become an unrestricted free agent in July.
Condon has bounced around this year. Despite being Montreal’s starter for most of last season due to Carey Price’s injury, the Canadiens opted to waive him at the end of training camp. Pittsburgh picked him up as insurance behind Marc-Andre Fleury with Matt Murray out with a broken hand sustained at the World Cup of Hockey. Once he returned though, Condon was once again the odd man out.
As a result of being the only team to submit a claim for him on waivers in October, the Penguins were able to trade Condon without having to put him back on waivers first. With Craig Anderson needing to miss some time to be with his wife who is battling cancer, the Senators flipped a 2017 fifth round pick to Pittsburgh to bring Condon in. To say the move has worked out well for Ottawa would be a huge understatement.
He has played in 31 games with the Sens, going 16-9-5 with a 2.56 GAA and a .912 SV%, a considerable improvement from his rookie numbers with Montreal last year. He also set a new franchise record for consecutive games played by a goalie, appearing in an impressive 27 straight contests, a streak that ended earlier this week. Ottawa finds themselves in second place in the Atlantic with Condon playing a large role in them getting there. Accordingly, he’s lining himself up to receive a nice raise in his next deal.
The Senators already have a pair of goalies signed beyond this season in Anderson ($4.2MM) and Andrew Hammond ($1.35MM) with both slated to become unrestricted following 2017-18. However, Ottawa has already shown they’re willing to run Hammond through waivers to keep Condon around as they did earlier this season so being signed for another year shouldn’t be an obstacle towards getting a new deal done with the pending UFA.
The guy is nothing more then a career backup. Just like when Sens locked up Hammond keep making poor decisions.
If it’s a cheap enough contract, it won’t hurt to extend him.
Exactly, a solid 1-2. Good insurance with an aging Anderson
Still kind of amazes me he was waived and made it all the way to the Pens who then turned him over for a 5th round pick.