When the New York Rangers traded Alexandar Georgiev to the Colorado Avalanche on July 7, 2022, there was ample reason to believe that the Avalanche were going to reap big benefits with the young goalie.
Yet, here we are just 29 months later and the Avalanche just moved on from Georgiev after things went sideways with his play. They traded him to the San Jose Sharks on Dec. 9, in part, for journeyman goalie Mackenzie Blackwood. That’s a major shift from when Colorado landed Georgiev the summer after winning the Stanley Cup, entrusting its run at a repeat with him.
The Rangers faced significant salary-cap challenges in the summer of 2022 when Georgiev became a restricted free agent, and he would have required a qualifying offer of $2.65 million – way too much for him to play understudy to star netminder Igor Shesterkin. The Avalanche pounced but he lasted only two full seasons in Colorado.
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Being traded by Rangers appeared inevitable for Alexandar Georgiev
Signed as an undrafted free agent by the Rangers in July 2017 after an eye-opening development camp, Georgiev grew into a strong prospect that got him a look on Broadway as Henrik Lundqvist’s career began to wind down. Impressed with his competitiveness and abundance of confidence, the Rangers called him up from Hartford of the American Hockey League in February 2018, and he went on to a mostly impressive four-plus season run with them — 58-48-11 with a .908 save percentage.
Georgiev fashioned eight shutouts with the Rangers and authored performances such as a 44-save performance in a 2-1 road win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on March 3, 2019, and another 44-save effort in a 2-0 road victory over the Carolina Hurricanes on March 20, 2022 – hinting at the possibility of an elite goaltender in the making.
Yet for all of his apparent talent, Georgiev’s timing with the Rangers proved not to be good, even with future Hall of Famer Lundqvist on the way out. The Blueshirts saw greatness in another young goalie of theirs, and that proved well-founded when Shesterkin arrived in January 2020. He quickly surpassed Georgiev on the depth chart.
Shesterkin went on to win the Vezina Trophy with a spectacular performance in 2021-22, his third season, and with the writing on the wall concerning Georgiev’s role in the Rangers organization, he made no secret of his desire to go elsewhere and establish himself as a No. 1 goalie. Georgiev felt that he had been wronged by what he viewed as the team’s pivot to Shesterkin, whose debut came nearly two years after Georgiev’s had.
The relationship never became acrimonious, but it came to an organic end. The Avalanche were eager to take advantage, seeing a potential star who only needed the right opportunity – and, at least early on, would come relatively cheap. Colorado happily surrendered a pair of third-round draft picks and a fifth-rounder, then inked Georgiev to a three-year, $10.2 million contract.
His first season in Denver seemed to validate Colorado’s belief. With one of the League’s most star-studded teams in front of him, Georgiev was 40-16-6 with five shutouts, tying for the NHL lead in wins and finishing ninth with a .918 save percentage.
Problems, however, began to rear their head in 2023-24. Georgiev’s save percentage fell to .897 and he led the League in goals allowed with 183, while posting a goals saved above average mark of minus-11.9 – 90th in the NHL. That he again topped the League in victories with 38 was more a function of him leading all goalies in minutes played and benefiting from Colorado’s NHL-best goal total of 304, rather than his own proficiency. He also struggled in Colorado’s six-game second-round playoff loss to the Dallas Stars.
The slide accelerated this season, and Georgiev left the Avalanche with no other option as poor goaltending paralyzed a Colorado club built to compete for the Stanley Cup. Georgiev’s final game with the Avalanche was a 29-save victory over the Detroit Red Wings on Dec. 7, but that result served as little more than a trade value multiplier for a goalie who was 8-7-0 with an .874 save percentage and 3.38 goals-against average this season. He gave up at least four goals six times in his 18 games.
The inevitable trade occurred two days after the win against the Red Wings, with Colorado receiving Blackwood, depth forward Givani Smith and a 2027 fifth-round pick. The speed of Georgiev’s decline left the front office that had such high hopes for him in a state of disbelief.
“I think it shook us to the core with (Georgiev’s) start (to the season),” said Avalanche general manager Chris MacFarland.
Trade to Sharks represents critical opportunity for Alexandar Georgiev
So it’s another fresh start for the former Rangers goalie, who also needed one back in 2022, a chance to establish himself in a situation that would give him a fair chance to seize the No. 1 job. The problem, of course, is that it would have been difficult to dream up a much better destination for Georgiev back then, when he joined the defending Stanley Cup champions who had a vacancy in net.
Will considerably less pressure for a rebuilding Sharks team allow Georgiev to reset and rediscover his game? It’s possible, but having a much less talented group in front of him will almost certainly mean more shots faced than he dealt with in Denver. San Jose is allowing 32.5 shots per game, highest in the NHL.
Georgiev’s first start with San Jose went well enough, when he made 17 saves in a 4-3 road win over the St. Louis Blues on Dec. 12.
“Very excited for it,” Georgiev said. “I don’t think too many guys want to be traded exactly, but it’s part of the business, and I feel it’s a great opportunity for me. … You know, nothing you can do. It’s the decision (the Avalanche) made. Felt like my game was trending in the right direction during the season. So that’s all you can control, your game and I’m excited for a chance here.
” … I don’t want to go too much into detail, of course, it’s a lot of factors (for the trade). I know I’m happy where my game was at the last 10 games or so.”
Georgiev will be an unrestricted free agent July 1, and rebuilding his value won’t be easy on a rebuilding team. Time will tell whether the affable Bulgaria-born goalie can do so. At the very least, he should get plenty of runway to try.
The Rangers, who often have trouble developing young skaters but bring goaltenders along better than anyone, should probably get some credit for identifying that Shesterkin, not Georgiev, was the future in net – even when the former was still competing in the Kontinental Hockey League as a 2014 fourth-round draft pick. That said, Georgiev’s up-and-down play was also easy to spot, and Shesterkin’s immediate brilliance and higher ceiling was readily identifiable to even the most casual fan.
It’s far too early to pass judgment on what the Rangers received for Georgiev. They took center Bryce McConnell-Barker with the 2022 third-round selection and left wing Maxim Barbashev in the fifth round that year. They moved up one spot from Colorado’s spot in the third round in 2023 to draft promising defenseman Drew Fortescue.
Almost nothing has gone right on Broadway this season, but Shesterkin’s recently-signed eight year, $92 million extension reflects his status as perhaps the top goalie in the game. He’s the Rangers best player, having emerged from an admittedly weighted competition in his favor three years ago to become a franchise cornerstone.
It’s highly unlikely that Georgiev will ever approach those heights. There’s still time, however, for him to fulfill at least some of the high-end promise he showed in flashes on Broadway.
