Well, Joe Sakic and Co. are at it again with the goaltending market. Instead of waiting it out and being forced into paying a premium for the best remaining option, the Sakic got out ahead of the game this year and made a big-time bet in trading two third-round picks (this year and next) and this year’s fifth-round pick to the New York Rangers in exchange for Alexandar Georgiev.
Georgiev, 26, is coming off the worst season of his career with the Rangers and has been looking for an exit for a while from the only NHL organization he’s ever known. Coming off a year in which he went 15-10-2 in 33 games played (28 starts), it’s the .898 save percentage and 2.92 goals-against-average that really stick out as potential areas of concern.
An RFA who is expected to sign a deal with the Avalanche soon, Georgiev’s arrival confirms the departure of outgoing starter Darcy Kuemper as he hits the free agent market next Wednesday. Kuemper will be looking to cash in on his Stanley Cup-winning season as Colorado’s top netminder as he looks to get a new contract that will make him one of the NHL’s highest-paid goaltenders.
While we wait for Georgiev’s contract to be signed, we do know that his qualifying offer is worth $2.65M, so any new deal is unlikely to be too far from that number. With Pavel Francouz already signed for the next two years at $2M, Colorado will likely be spending in the neighborhood of $5M total on their goaltending tandem, while Kuemper goes to the market seeking to be paid around $6M per season. If you were looking for why the Avs made this deal, that’s a good place to start.
Given that Kuemper is already 32, Colorado’s appetite for committing to a long and expensive contract clearly just wasn’t there. The list of highest-paid goaltenders is largely a list of older has-beens with a couple of prime stars dotting the list.
Of those, the only goaltenders you genuinely have confidence in given recent form are Vasilevsky and Hellebuyck, though Bobrovsky and Markstrom did have good seasons followed by disappointing playoff exits. The rest of that list screams “Do not pay a goaltender a premium price”, especially one already at 32 and coming off a bizarre eye injury.
In Georgiev, the Avs get a player at 26 who was considered one of the league’s intriguing young netminders not too long ago but one who also won’t break the bank. Let’s get a little more into Georgiev’s advanced numbers and compare them to the player the Avs are letting walk away.
All this really shows is what we knew already – Leaving is a goaltender who had an elite regular season and a complicated postseason (poor play while battling vision problems is a weird combination). Arriving is a goaltender who has been about league average throughout his five-year career and has never been a true starter before.
Georgiev’s 32 starts in 34 appearances in 2019-20 were both career-high marks for him. The 34 appearances match the career-high from his new goalie partner, Francouz, but Francouz has only started 30 games one time in his NHL career.
This opens the door for the Avalanche to defend their Stanley Cup next year with a totally unproven (from a starter’s perspective) goaltending tandem. Another way to look at it, however, is after Kuemper’s .902 and Francouz’s .906 in the playoffs, the Avs may be taking a step back in the regular season but it would seem almost a challenge for them to get worse play in the postseason than what they collectively got this year despite winning the Stanley Cup.
Sitting right around $25M in salary cap space before Georgiev signs his contract, the Avs still have plenty of big decisions to make in the next week, but at least one position appears to be settled.
