Bad goaltending is killing the Avalanche

I hate writing about goaltending, because it’s just a kneejerk thing to do most of the time.

News: Goaltender gives up a few goals.

Kneejerk media: The goaltending is awful!

Almost none of us have ever tended goal in a hockey game. We have no idea what it’s like.  But, look, it’s time to address the goaltending of the Avalanche, specifically the play of veteran Semyon Varlamov. It’s a fair question at this point to wonder whether his skills have eroded to the point where it’s getting time to move on.

When I say “skills”, I’m mostly just talking about his physical quickness. I’m talking about whether age or injuries or a combination of both have made him more of a liability to the team right now than a benefit.

Every goalie has a bad game now and then. But the Avs have the worst record in the NHL since the early part of December, and while there are other reasons as to why, the biggest reason probably has been because of inferior goaltending.

In his last 13 starts, including Monday’s loss to the Nashville Predators, Varlamov has posted in-game saves percentages below .900 in nine of them. On Monday, 36-year-old Pekka Rinne came into the Pepsi Center and just flat outplayed Varlamov, in yet another Avs loss to Nashville. (Rinne is now 25-8-2 in his career against the Avalanche. He owns them).

Varlamov is only 30. So, age shouldn’t be the problem. The issue may just be his body. Simply put, he just seems noticeably slower on his skates. We all saw that wraparound goal he gave up in the second period, to Viktor Arvidsson, and gasped at how slow Varlamov was to react. He was beaten by a country mile. That’s not the first time of late he’s been beaten on a goal you otherwise almost never see anymore.

Varlamov has had surgeries on his knees, hips and groin in recent years. He’s playing, so he’s not going to say he’s hurt, or that he’s not 100 percent or any other excuse. He never makes excuses for himself.

But, clearly, he’s just not as quick on his feet as he once was. That was the one thing everybody noticed about Varlamov when he first came over from Washington in 2011, how quick he was getting up and down off his feet, and side-to-side. As quick as anyone I’d ever seen, frankly.

Now, it seems like he’s lumbering from side to side. When he falls to his pads or on his side, it seems like it’s harder for him to get back up. That’s just what it looks like, anyway.

Bad defense tends to create bad goaltending, and the Avs certainly had plenty of the former Monday too. Whether it was Nikita Zadorov giving the puck away like a store in a going-out-of-business sale or Mark Barberio lagging far behind the play on an odd-man rush, Varlamov was done no favors by some of the play in front of him.

But Rinne had some bad defensive play in front of him too Monday, including having to deal with a penalty shot by Matt Nieto at one point. But he made the saves. Varlamov, who faced far fewer shots that Rinne, did not.

“The difference in the hockey game tonight was their goaltender,” Jared Bednar told me after the game. “I have no problem with the way we played today. We made some mistakes, they capitalized. They made lots of mistakes too, we didn’t capitalize.”

The simple solution would be to just bench Varly and go with Philipp Grubauer, but he’s been just as bad or worse. While Grubauer’s record is 9-5-3, his saves percentage of .895 was ranked 57th in the NHL entering Monday. His goals-against average of 3.29 ranks 65th.

The bitter irony of this is that goaltending was probably the one thing we thought we wouldn’t have to worry about with this team this year. Varlamov was said to be fully healed from knee surgery, playing in a contract year, and Grubauer was the younger, promising heir apparent with a new three-year contract.

Things started out pretty well, but it’s just been bad for a while now. You can’t have goaltending where every mistake winds up in the back of your net, no matter how egregious.

The reason why I hate writing about goaltending is that, one or two good games from Varly or Grubauer, and we’ll all be saying how unbelievable they were and stop worrying. Goaltenders get too much credit and too much blame, no matter what. It’s a team game.

But this is turning into more than just a minor glitch. The fact is, the Avs are losing games right now – critical, critical games – because of their goaltending.

I’ve never played the position. I really don’t know a thing about goaltending. I just know the puck isn’t being stopped enough right now by Avs goaltenders.

And it’s killing them.