Alexandar Georgiev Saved The Avalanche
In a season of turmoil for Colorado, the former backup goalie has been Mr. Reliable.
Heading into the 2022-23 season, one of the biggest question marks for the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche was at arguably the most important position in hockey: Goaltender. The Avs had just won the Cup with Darcy Kuemper, but Kuemper was moving on — he signed a 5-year, $26.25 million contract with the Washington Capitals in July. To fill the gap, Colorado executed a sign-and-trade deal with the New York Rangers for Alexandar Georgiev, the then-26-year-old Bulgarian goalie who had served as understudy to Vezina Trophy-winning starter Igor Shesterkin in New York.
The plan was for Georgiev to pair with returning backup Pavel Francouz, holding down the fort in net and letting Colorado’s outstanding corps of skaters power the team’s championship defense. But it wasn’t an idea without flaws. Georgiev had never started more than 32 games in a season in his 5 previous NHL seasons; he’d also been a below-average goalie (by Goals Saved Above Average) in back-to-back seasons and a below-replacement one (by Goals Above Replacement) in 2021-22. While it’s true that Kuemper had also seen his share of criticism at times despite winning the Cup, this time the Avs were really putting an untested product in net and hoping things wouldn’t get too messed up.
But not only has Georgiev avoided bungling the Avs’ repeat bid, he has probably been the single biggest reason Colorado still ranks among the strongest Cup contenders this season.
With a .919 save percentage — 15% better than league average — Georgiev has emerged from his former backup status to become one of the top goalies in the NHL. According to adjusted GAR, Georgiev’s 25.2 mark in net ranks fourth-best in the league, trailing only Linus Ullmark (33.9), Ilya Sorokin (29.1) and Juuse Saros (26.4). That number also leads all members of the Avalanche, even including the likes of Mikko Rantanen, Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar.
And it turns out that the Avalanche really needed a strong performance in net this season. Whereas the 2021-22 Avs ranked 4th in offensive GAR and 6th in GAR from skaters overall, this year’s version ranks 14th on offense and 11th in its skaters’ contributions. That’s not horrible, but one of the heaviest injury tolls in the league has put more of the onus for Colorado’s success on the masked men between the pipes. Between Georgiev’s excellence as starter and a very strong backup performance by Francouz, the Avs’ netminding has been up to the task; Colorado ranks 4th in GAR from goalies this year, tied with last year for its best ranking since finishing 3rd in 2014-15.
Without the 31.3 net GAR contributed by its goaltenders — in other words, if Georgiev and Francouz had been replacement-level netminders (not a totally impossible circumstance, based on Georgiev’s 2021-22 numbers in particular) — Colorado would have just 136.9 total adjusted GAR. That translates to a +0.17 goals per game differential, which would land in the same neighborhood as the Winnipeg Jets, Florida Panthers, Washington Capitals and Calgary Flames … a quartet of teams fighting for their playoff lives.
Instead, Georgiev stepped up in a big way during his first season as a full-time NHL starting goaltender, more than replacing the production Colorado lost when Kuemper departed. And in turn, the Avalanche still look like real threats to win another title in 2023, with the second-best Cup odds (+700) according to FanDuel and a 19% chance (also second-best) according to FiveThirtyEight.