Between The Pipes: Ellis Heading To Tampa, Mason Joining Atlanta, Raycroft Aligning With Stars

In light of teams being able to find postseason success without a high-priced goaltender, many are now seeking cheaper options to guard their net. While Evgeni Nabokov and Marty Turco are still without employment, several less-prolific, yet experienced goalies were snatched up right away - and cheap.

~ The Montreal Canadiens tried to bring Dan Ellis into their mix when they traded for his rights from the Nashville Predators. But they couldn't come to an agreement with the 30-year old, and instead opted to bring in Alex Auld on a one year deal. That left Ellis to look for work elsewhere, and he found it in Tampa Bay. Lightning General Manager Steve Yzerman was able to lock him up for two years at $3 million, marking a $500,000/year discount over what former Lightning Antero Niittymaki signed for as the newest No. 1/1A in San Jose. Ellis should start out playing the backup role, with a generous portion of games going his way, to Mike Smith. And if Smith slips, there should be no hesitation on Tampa's end to make a switch. This is a good, cost-saving move by Yzerman that provides the Lightning a formidable one-two punch in net.

~ When the St. Louis Blues decided to get younger in net and traded for Jaroslav Halak, who is thus far unsigned as a restricted free agent, it pretty much spelled the end of Chris Mason's tenure with the team. That doesn't mean the 34-year old was a disappointment during his two years in St. Louis. Quite the contrary. He served extremely well in 118 games played with a 57-43-15 record as a Blue. In 61 games last year, he won a career-high 30 games and posted a 2.53 goals against average and .913 save percentage. Two years ago, he racked up a career-high six shutouts. That's solid production that the Atlanta Thrashers hope will continue from their new backup netminder. Mason signed with the ever-improving Thrashers for the next two years at $3.7 million. He will see salaries of $1.6 million next season and $2.1 million in 2011-12 for an annual cap hit of $1.85 million. Yeah, it's a bit expensive. But with Kari Lehtonen and Johan Hedberg both gone and Ondrej Pavelec still pretty unproven, Mason's pay is justified. When it's all said and done, he'll probably end up becoming Atlanta's starter.

~ Andrew Raycroft will forever be known as the Boston Bruin rookie who won the Calder Memorial Trophy in 2004 and then went on to be ridiculously awful. But as a backup to Roberto Luongo in Vancouver last season, Raycroft actually played pretty well. He was in 21 games, went 9-5-1, had a 2.42 goals against and .911 save percentage. He parlayed that into a two-year, $1.3 million contract to play backup to Kari Lehtonen in Dallas. He will see salaries of $700,000 next season and $600,000 in 2011-12. A Lehtonen/Raycroft combination is pretty uninspiring really. But it's not exactly easy to get excited over a replacement for Marty Turco.