Daniil Tarasov

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

33 appearances, 13-15-3, a 3.05 goals-against average and a .8951 save percentage with no shutouts. His career figure across 98 games is .897.

The Physical Game

6-5 and 203, which is enormous, and the size has always promised more than the results have delivered. He takes up a great deal of net when he is square and gets caught reaching when he is not.

The technique has never settled. He is athletic and inconsistent, and the rebound control is the weakest part — too many pucks come back to the slot.

The Mental Game

5 seasons of being the second goaltender on poor teams, and nothing suggests he has soured on it. He has been handed heavy stretches when the starter was hurt and has been roughly this good in all of them.

The Intangibles

The league median among goaltenders with 25 or more games was .896. He was at .8951 across 33, which is exactly average, and his career figure is a point below that.

Detroit’s goaltending came in 7 goals worse than the chances it faced. Gibson stopped .9014 and finished at .863 across his last 10; Tarasov stopped .8951 across the season.

He is 27. Neither of these men had a good year, and a club that finished 24th in even-strength expected goals against cannot afford 2 average goaltenders. That is the clearest thing to say about a position Detroit has not solved in a decade.