The Avalanche doesn’t have a goaltending controversy.
It has a goaltending mess.
After the Avalanche’s 3-2 overtime win over Winnipeg on Friday night, Semyon Varlamov had a 3.47 goals-against average and an .882 save percentage. To be fair, he hadn’t been as horrific as those numbers, and new coach Jared Bednar has been blunt, at times saying Varlamov must be better, but also qualifying it with the kicker that his teammates have hung him out to dry far too often.
The Avalanche needs Varlamov to consistently flash back to the Varlamov of 2013-14, when he was a Vezina Trophy finalist and when he bailed out his teammates on many nights, fulfilling the mandate for elite NHL goalies. That’s their job, and the great goalies luxuriate in that challenge.
Great goalies expand the limits of what can be realistically expected, because they do it night after night. Teammates have to be skating toward the crease after the game ends, to offer sincere, enthusiastic gratitude; rather than going through the motions because that’s what they’re supposed to do.
Those not up to it, even if they’re bona fide NHL goalies occasionally making breathtaking saves, are defended with the often at least nominally correct rationalization that there’s only so much one man can do.
And that’s pretty much how it has been with the Avalanche and Varlamov this season.
The Avalanche hopes Varlamov flashes back, not only for the obvious short-term competitive reasons, but longer-term considerations. Unless he rehabilitates his reputation, he is untradable with that contract. Wishing that the Las Vegas Whatevers claim him in the expansion draft, for both competitive and cap reasons, isn’t realistic. (Las Vegas must “spend” at least 60 percent of the cap figure in the expansion draft.)
Varlamov signed a five-year, $29.5 million contract extension in early 2014, locking him up through 2018-19 and leaving the Avalanche with a $5.9 million annual cap hit. He is making $6.0 million this season before his salary de-escalates slightly, to $5.75 million and $5.5 million. So let’s dispense with this right away: If the Avalanche buys out Varlamov in June, it will owe him $1.875 million a year for four years — or two-thirds of his remaining $11.25 million salary spread out over twice the time remaining on his contract.
Backup Calvin Pickard, who was in the net for the 4-2 loss to Arizona Tuesday night, suffered his first loss of the season. He has played well this season and in the past when given a chance, including in the bizarre periods when he — and not Reto Berra — was Varlamov’s de facto backup while shuttling back and forth between the Lake Erie Monsters and the Avalanche.
It would mitigate the damages if Pickard claims the No. 1 goaltending job and holds it long-term through merit, rather than merely as a disowning of Varlamov. But even then, the Avalanche would have a $6 million goalie watching from the bench the majority of the nights. While that kind of fall from grace for a veteran and a lower-priced goalie stepping up isn’t unprecedented, it’s still awkward — and, worse, economically counterproductive in the bang-for-the-buck evaluations that go with the hard cap system.
So one of the major issues is: How far can the Avalanche go in forcing the issue, in giving Varlamov repeated chances as the No. 1 in the net?
Bednar is pragmatic, saying he has to ride the hot goaltender, or, by implication, demote the one that is cold.
But if the Avalanche seems to be bending over backward to have Varlamov play out of this funk, it’s understandable. At this point, it’s virtually impossible to cut its losses and move on.
Then you get to this: At age 28, is this what Varlamov is? And what he will be from here on?
If the answer to both of those is yes, then it’s going to get even messier.
Spotlight on: Kings goaltender Peter Budaj
When: Tuesday, 7 p.m.
Whatap up: Budaj, who was with the Avalanche from 2005-11, is likely to get the start against his former team.
Background: The Kings’ standout No. 1 goalie, Jonathan Quick, suffered a groin injury in the season opener and is expected to be out until early 2017. Since then, Budaj has been an ironman.
Frei’s take: Budaj was a good soldier during his time with the Avalanche, serving as a backup to David Aebischer, Jose Theodore and Craig Anderson. His most active season was 2008-09, when he played 56 games and was the No. 1 goalie, with Andrew Raycroft backing him up. He was close to a fellow Slovak, Avalanche winger Marek Svatos, who died Nov. 5 in Lone Tree, so his return to the Denver and the Pepsi Center likely will involve some angst. In an interview with the Slovakia newspaper Plus Jeden Den, Budaj said of Svatos: “We talked four days before it happened. We spoke about normal topics, like how he’s doing, how’s his family. He asked me the same. Nothing extraordinary or special. Like between two friends . . . We and our families had known each other for years. I was at his wedding in Croatia. Nothing in our call indicated that he wouldn’t be here in four days. He said he and his family were all doing fine. He asked me to send some training plans, as he wanted to resume practicing and maybe restart his hockey career. It surprised me in a positive way.” The Douglas County Coroner’s Office last week said its autopsy of Svatos was inconclusive, pending possible additional medical studies and investigation.
