This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →

James Reimer

Twelve seasons and 12,640 shots at .9128, with never a year above forty-eight games.

Season	Team	GP	W	L	OTL	GA	GAA	SO	SA	SV%

2010-11	TOR	37	20	10	5	90	2.60	3	1134	.921
2011-12	TOR	34	14	14	4	97	3.10	3	974	.900
2012-13	TOR	33	19	8	5	76	2.46	4	995	.924
2013-14	TOR	36	12	16	1	98	3.29	1	1095	.910
2014-15	TOR	35	9	16	1	93	3.16	0	1001	.907
2015-16	TOR/SJS	40	17	14	7	88	2.31	3	1128	.922
2016-17	FLA	43	18	16	5	98	2.53	3	1222	.920
2017-18	FLA	44	22	14	6	120	2.99	4	1373	.913
2018-19	FLA	36	13	12	5	93	3.09	0	929	.900
2019-20	CAR	25	14	6	2	61	2.66	3	712	.914
2020-21	CAR	22	15	5	2	59	2.66	0	627	.906
2021-22	SJS	48	19	17	10	129	2.90	1	1450	.911
2022-23 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	433	192	148	53	1102	2.80	25	12640	.913

This Season So Far

The 2022-23 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

48 games, 19-17-10, a .9110 save percentage and a 2.90 goals-against, one shutout on 1,450 shots. That is 24th of the 53 goaltenders who played twenty-five games — the middle of the league, almost exactly.

Ninety-ninth overall in 2006 by Toronto — the fourth round — twelve seasons, 433 games.

The Physical Game

6-2 and 200 pounds, and 34 years old.

Twelve seasons and 12,640 career shots at .9128, which is the largest body of evidence attached to any goaltender in this batch of four clubs — more than Martin Jones’s 10,924 and nearly three times Tristan Jarry’s 4,570.

And the record is unusually flat for its length. Ten of his twelve seasons fall between .9059 and .9236, and the two that do not are .9004 in 2011-12 and .8999 in 2018-19. No season has ever gone above .9236 and only those two have fallen below .9050.

Forty-eight games last season is the most he has ever played. In twelve years he has never once been given a starter’s schedule, and the largest sample in this batch has been accumulated forty games at a time.

The Mental Game

San Jose rated 20th in the league in goaltending at minus-8.9 goals saved above expectation, and the crease carried three men: Reimer at .9110 across forty-eight games, Adin Hill at .9059 across twenty-five — 31st of the same 53 — and Kaapo Kahkonen at .9119 across twelve games here.

The skaters in front of them finished 31st in the league in attempt share at 45.6 per cent — only Arizona held the puck less — and 22nd in chance share at 47.4.

Nine places of difference between how little they held the puck and how well they held the middle of the ice is the shape of the club, and a .9110 behind it is a considerably better number than it looks.

The Intangibles

Nothing here measures rebound control or how he tracks a puck through traffic.

What it measures is 12,640 shots at .9128 from a 34-year-old who has been reliably a little above league average for twelve years and has never been trusted with sixty games.

Adin Hill has gone to Vegas. What San Jose has left is Reimer at 34 and Kaapo Kahkonen at 26 with sixty-five NHL games, which is a genuine competition for the first time in his career.