Vejmelka signed a big extension to remain in Utah.

• Player Overview
• Comparables
• Final Analysis

Karel Vejmelka signed a five-year contract extension with the Utah Hockey Club last week, carrying a $4.75M cap hit. The deal carries a partial no-trade clause, and kicks in for the 2025-26 season.

Below, we take a look at how the deal looks for Utah HC, and whether they’re getting fair value.

Player Overview

Originally selected by the Nashville Predators in the 2015 NHL Draft, it took a while for Karel Vejmelka to make the jump to North America. The netminder spent another six seasons in Czechia, before eventually signing an NHL contract with the Arizona Coyotes.

With the Coyotes firmly in a rebuild, Vejmelka jumped right to the NHL, and ended up starting 52 games in his rookie season, while posting an .898 save percentage.

The 2022-23 season saw Vejmelka post very similar numbers across 50 games, before a strong year from Connor Ingram in 2023-24 resulted in a bit of a reduced role for Vejmelka last season.

However, Vejmelka has since managed to put together the best season of his career in Utah’s inaugural season. Across 40 games this season, Vejmelka has posted a .910 save percentage, along with a 2.48 goals against average. With his extension keeping him in Utah until 2030, Vejmelka will have the opportunity to take over Utah’s crease for the forseeable future.

Comparables

With Vejmelka turning 29 years old in May, below, we’ll take a look at other contracts signed by goaltenders at a similar age, to get a sense of whether the deal carries fair value. The comparables featured in the article began the first year of their contract around a similar age, and comparables for other contract lengths will be listed as well. The age listed in the tables below represent a netminder’s age by Dec. 31 in the first year of their contract.

7/8 YEARS

Looking at other possible contract lengths, the goalies who signed seven and eight-year contracts below had pretty large gap between their stats, and those that Vejmelka posted.

Almost all goalies who signed a seven or eight-year deal both had higher stats, and started a higher percentage of their team’s games in their signing year.

As a result, it’s pretty clear that Vejmelka was never expected to get that length of a contract, either from Utah or in free agency.

6 YEARS

At a six-year term, we see a fairly similar situation. All goalies listed had much higher career stats than Vejmelka, with a good portion of those goalies also posting better signing year stats.

So while the career experience and percentage of games being started in their signing year was closer than with the seven/eight-year comps, a six-year deal was also unlikely for Vejmelka.

5 YEARS

A five-year deal, which Vejmelka signed for, was always the most likely scenario.

As was talked about in the Kevin Lankinen contract analysis article, we’ve seen a recent trend towards 1A/1B goalies around Vejmelka’s age signing five-year deals. Just over the last year, we’ve seen Mackenzie Blackwood, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Joey Daccord, and Kevin Lankinen all sign for that term prior to Vejmelka’s extension.

While Vejmelka’s career stats may have been lower than the other goalies listed, his signing year stats, percentage of games started in his signing year, and career experience all aligned pretty closely.

Looking towards the bottom of the table, we also get an idea as to why Vejmelka’s $4.75M cap hit came in where it did. Mackenzie Blackwood had both higher signing year stats and career stats, as well as more career experience, which points to his $5.25M cap hit being a bit higher than Vejmelka.

There’s likely an argument that Vejmelka could’ve reached the $5M mark, based on having more career experience than Luukkonen ($5.15M adjusted cap hit) and Daccord. ($5M cap hit). At the same time, Luukkonen had better career stats, and a higher percentage of games started in his signing year, while Daccord had better stats both in his signing year and over his career.

Plus, with Korpisalo ($4.57M adjusted cap hit), Vejmelka may have started a higher percentage of games but Korpisalo had the better stats, and a little more career experience.

Lankinen’s recent contract also points to why Vejmelka’s cap hit may have been a bit lower than $5M per year. Lankinen and Vejmelka had started the same percentage of their team’s games in their signing year and had fairly comparable career experience. While Vejmelka had the higher signing year stats, Lankinen had the higher career stats.

So Vejmelka’s range for a cap hit on a five-year deal was likely between $4.5M on the low end, and $5M on the high end, putting his $4.75M cap hit right in the middle of this range.

4 YEARS

While four years or less was a possibility for Vejmelka’s contract, there’s been a lack of recent comps to justify a shorter deal.

All deals on the table above, other than Ullmark’s recent extension, were signed in 2021 or before. With Ullmark’s extension with the Ottawa Senators, he’ll also begin the contract at 32 years old, which is three years older than when Vejmelka will begin his deal. So there’s more risk in age-based decline with Ullmark’s contract, pointing to the reasoning for the longer term on Vejmelka’s deal.

With Vejmelka turning 29 years old, this was the best opportunity to capitalize on a deal with the most term possible. While he could’ve opted for a shorter deal to try to cash in later, there also would’ve been substantial risk in doing so. Vejmelka is in the midst of the best season of his career, and mixed with the recent trend of five-year deals for comparable goalies, and the lack of comps for deals at four years or less, it’s clear to see why Vejmelka ended up taking a five-year deal.

Final Analysis

A five-year term for Vejmelka’s deal makes sense, based on the number of recent comps who signed at the same term. Even if Utah wasn’t willing to go to five years, it’s likely that someone else would have in free agency. In a fairly weak UFA goalie market, Vejmelka was poised to be one of the best free agent netminders available.

The five-year comps would’ve pointed towards Vejmelka’s cap hit coming in somewhere between $4.5M on the low end, and $5M on the high end. So his $4.75M cap hit comes in just about as expected.

While there’s risk in the deal, there’s also the potential for big upside. If Vejmelka can sustain this level of play, especially with the salary cap rising, the contract can carry a lot of value for Utah.