Photo by Fabien Perissinotto, CC BY-SA 4.0
Elvis Merzlikins
Columbus Blue Jackets Goaltender #90
Two hundred and seventy-four games, and a .883 that has taken the job away from him.
| Season | GP | W | L | OTL | GA | GAA | SO | SA | SV% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | 30 | 14 | 11 | 3 | 95 | 3.40 | 1 | 812 | .883 |
| Career | 274 | 108 | 111 | 38 | 821 | 3.22 | 12 | 8188 | .900 |
Last Season
Thirty appearances, 14-11-3, a 3.40 goals-against average and a .883 save percentage with one shutout. His career figure across 274 games is .8997.
The Physical Game
Six foot three, 190, and one of the more athletic goaltenders in the league — he makes saves from positions nobody would choose, and he has always been able to do it.
The trouble is that he needs to. The positional discipline has never been consistent, so a season contains a dozen games that look brilliant and a dozen where he is beaten by shots that should be routine, and lately more of the second than the first.
Puck-handling is genuinely good and he uses it to start breakouts.
The Mental Game
He has been the face of this club through a period nobody would wish on a goaltender, and the emotional openness that made him easy to admire has not obviously helped his consistency.
Over his last ten appearances, .881 on 219 shots.
The Intangibles
Behind the same defence, in the same season, Greaves stopped .908 and Merzlikins stopped .883. That is a twenty-five thousandth gap and it is why one of them played 55 games and the other 30.
Columbus’s goaltending still came in two goals better than the chances it faced, which is Greaves’s doing.
He is 32 with a career .8997, and the last three seasons have all been below it. The job has gone and the contract has not.