Kochetkov's 10-0 start makes Carolina's $3.95 million bet look cheap
Carolina's goalie is the third in NHL history to open 10-0, and his two-year extension starts at about 3.5 percent of next year's projected ceiling.
The number: 21.1. That's how many shots Pyotr Kochetkov has faced per start, by our count, through a 10-0 opening that puts him in a group of three in NHL history. The streak is real, but what Carolina already committed to the next two years of him is the more interesting story.
Kochetkov blanked Winnipeg 7-0 on Sunday with 26 saves, his second shutout of the season. He's 10-0-0 with a .929 save percentage and a 1.49 goals-against average, per NHL data. He hasn't faced more than 26 shots in any start.
This is a goalie who missed 287 days between NHL games after hip surgery and made eight starts last season. Carolina is 12-2-2, and 10 of those wins are his.
The system question
The fair objection is that Carolina makes this easy. Twenty-one shots a night is light work, and the Hurricanes' penalty kill is at 83.3 percent, per NHL data.
The answer sits on the same roster. Brandon Bussi has started the other six games behind the same skaters and is 2-2-2 with an .865 save percentage. Same structure, same shot volume, very different results: the system keeps the shots down, and Kochetkov is the one stopping them.
The price
He's playing out a contract with a $2 million cap hit, about 1.9 percent of this season's $104 million ceiling. On Sept. 25, before any of this happened, Carolina extended him for two more years.
Contract card: Pyotr Kochetkov, Carolina
- Term: two years, 2027-28 and 2028-29
- AAV: $3.95 million; $7.9 million total ($5.4 million in salary, $2.5 million in signing bonuses)
- Cap share: about 3.5 percent of the projected $113.5 million ceiling for 2027-28
- Protection: none listed
- At expiry: unrestricted free agent
- The comparables: Joey Daccord, five years at $5 million AAV; Spencer Knight, three years at $5.83 million AAV. Both signed under lower ceilings than the one Kochetkov's deal starts under.
- Verdict: team-friendly. The AAV is reasonable on its own; the short term is the point.
That last line matters, because two years is the right length for a goalie whose résumé includes one healthy, dominant month following an injury-shortened season. If the hip holds up and the save percentage stays north of .910, Carolina gets a starter at a backup's share of the cap. If it doesn't, the exposure is two years and no protection clause to work around.
The sign-him-now case was a gamble in September. It looks like the best goalie contract signed this fall, and nobody had to guess at a long-term number to get it.
What I'd watch
Workload. Kochetkov has started 10 of Carolina's 16 games, which is a 51-start pace over 82, by our count. He has never carried that load in the NHL. Ten starts is a small sample, and save percentages tend to drift back toward a goalie's established level, which for Kochetkov was .905 across 125 career games coming into the season. The question isn't whether he cools off, it's whether Brind'Amour can keep the starts closer to 45 and still have him fresh in April.
