Alexandar Georgiev is the winningest goalie in the NHL since the New York Rangers traded him to the Colorado Avalanche in July 2022. He tied Linus Ullmark of the Boston Bruins with 40 victories in 2022-23 and led the League with 38 last season. That was two more than Igor Shesterkin, whose emergence as the No. 1 goalie in New York made Georgiev expendable.
Georgiev piled up all those wins with a lot of help from his friends. The Avalanche are one of the highest-scoring teams in the NHL, and his 38 wins last season came despite finishing with a save percentage of .897, which was 41st in the League among all goaltenders who played at least 25 games. He matched that .897 figure in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, when he was 6-5 and Colorado was eliminated by the Dallas Stars in the second round.
Shesterkin’s 73 wins during the past two seasons are five fewer than Georgiev; however, the Rangers goaltender had a better goals-against average (2.53 to 2.77) and save percentage (.915 to .908) in that span.
But this isn’t about a debate regarding the former teammates. This is about a steep decline in Georgiev’s play to begin this season, and the heavy criticism he faces just four starts into his free-agent campaign.
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Alexandar Georgiev’s slow start taking Avalanche with him
Simply, Georgiev’s game has fallen off a cliff – and the Avs have gone along with him.
Colorado fell to 0-4-0, its worst start since 1998-99, with a 5-3 loss to the Boston Bruins in Denver on Wednesday night. Georgiev wasn’t awful, with a number of Grade A stops among his 21 saves (on 25 shots; there was one empty-net goal). But the four goals allowed and .833 save percentage actually improved his numbers for the season. His GAA “dropped” to 5.79 while his save percentage “improved” to .802 (17 goals allowed on 86 shots faced).
“It’s tough to say you played good when (you) give up four,” he said after the latest loss.
Georgiev’s season began with two disastrous starts. He allowed five goals on 16 shots before being pulled after two periods in an 8-4 season-opening loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Oct. 9. Then the 28-year-old was pulled again after surrendering three goals on nine shots against the Columbus Blue Jackets three nights later; backup Justin Annunen was tagged with the defeat in a 6-4 loss.
The former Rangers goalie was better against the New York Islanders on Monday, making 31 saves on 36 shots, but still allowed a couple of those “goals the goalie would like to have back” in a 6-2 loss that saw the Avalanche defense struggle all night. A couple of hours earlier, Shesterkin was sharp in a 31-save performance during the Rangers’ 4-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings.
“Probably not a great start, right?” coach Jared Bednar said after the loss to the Islanders. “But I thought that was our worst defensive game of the three (losses to start the season) by a mile, not even close. He made a lot of good saves. He did.
“I look at it and that was his best of the (first) three (games). He made some big saves. He looked more like himself tonight, which is a big step in the right direction.”
To be fair, the Avalanche are missing a lot of their key players. They lost forward Miles Wood after a hard hit Wednesday and were already missing five key players, including forwards Artturi Lehkonen and Jonathan Drouin, as well as top-pair defenseman Devon Toews.
Georgiev did keep his team in the game against the Bruins during a stretch in the second period when Boston dominated. He prevented the game from turning into a rout, giving Colorado a chance to come back – and offered hope that he’ll revert to the goalie who piled up wins during the previous two seasons and played in the 2024 NHL All-Star Game.
“Better for sure,” Bednar said. “Made a bunch of big saves. Moving in the right direction. Last game, then this game — just keep going.”
But Georgiev admitted afterward that the bottom line is how many pucks you keep out of the net.
“It’s a really tough situation,” he said. “Just doing the best we can every day, and I feel if everybody does that then we’ve got a good chance every night. I believe in the team. We are such a good team who can score a lot. We can play great defense. Just have to learn from it but not get discouraged and get to the next one with sharp brains.”
Georgiev, who can be an unrestricted free agent at the of this season, was 58-48-11 in 129 games (117 starts) with the Rangers over five seasons to begin his NHL career. He had a 2.94 GAA, .908 save percentage and eight shutouts with New York.
