The Colorado Avalanche may have some issues in goal for the 2016-17 NHL season. Though, it won’t be for a lack of options; it will be for a lack of reliability in net.
The challengers are headlined by Semyon Varlamov, who is 28 years old and is under contract until 2019. He has a $5.9 million cap hit each of the next three seasons. Behind him is Calvin Pickard, who is just 24, and is signed through 2018 for just $1 million per season. The team also brought in Jeremy Smith this offseason. Smith, a former second-round NHL draft pick and AHL veteran, is ready for a chance.
Unfortunately, none of these three men were arguably Colorado’s best goaltender last season. That distinction falls to Reto Berra, who led the team with a 2.41 goals-against average and .922 save percentage. He started just 12 times, though, and was shipped to the Florida Panthers this offseason. That leaves goalie duties to the aforementioned trio.
Varlamov is the easy favorite to grab the starting job, even if his night-to-night performance has remained volatile. Despite starting the vast majority of games for the Avalanche last season, he continually left fans and his team feeling uneasy in his performance.
Varlamov tallied a career-high 25 losses in his 57 games. It was just his second season ever finishing with a GAA above 2.80. Based on Hockey Reference’s goals-allowed percentage stat, he was below average in 2015-16 — not terrible, but worse than over half the league’s goalies.
Varlamov has experience on his side, as well as past success and that contract — the team might scoff at moving $5.9 million per season to the bench — and it was just three years ago that he finished second in the league for the Vezina Trophy.
But that experience also plays against him. The coaching staff has extensive data that may tell them Varlamov isn’t good enough anymore, at least to be the regular net-minder. Pickard wasn’t great last season, either, but he has just 26 career starts and has shown flashes of excellence. That youth and ability for growth are intriguing, making Pickard not only a plausible starting goaltender in the NHL in the future but also an immediate contender for playing time.
The departure of Berra may end up playing against Colorado. Smith is likely an AHL asset and nothing more outside of injury depth. That means the team’s success will come down to two guys who couldn’t cut it last year. Now, the defense in front of them did them no favors. Colorado ranked 27th in the NHL in shot differential, giving up nearly four more shots per game than it took. The Avalanche needed their goalies to step up, but instead they wilted.
There is no guarantee that the defense will be any better this coming season. The goal is to make it back into the playoff picture for the Avalanche. To get there they have to win, and to win, the goalies will need to be better. In all honesty, that probably means a similar timeshare to what we saw last season.
There is no indication management is disenchanted with Varlamov, at least not enough to completely alter the pecking order. That would mean he’s in store for another majority of starts, with Pickard picking up the slack and filling in. Pickard should see an uptick in his own usage since there is no clear third person vying for time at the moment, but this is still a volatile situation. That is what happens when a team relies on multiple goaltenders and none of them distance themselves from their competition. It leaves fans nervous and dreading the status quo.
