This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Karel Vejmelka
Arizona Coyotes Goaltender
A .899 on 1,670 shots behind the 29th-best defence in hockey.
| Season | Team | GP | W | L | OTL | GA | GAA | SO | SA | SV% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | ARI | 52 | 13 | 32 | 3 | 170 | 3.68 | 1 | 1669 | .898 |
| 2022-23 | ARI | 50 | 18 | 24 | 6 | 168 | 3.43 | 3 | 1670 | .899 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 102 | 31 | 56 | 9 | 338 | 3.55 | 4 | 3339 | .899 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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
50 games, 18-24-6, an .8994 save percentage and a 3.43 goals-against average, with 3 shutouts on 1,670 shots faced.
Three shutouts and a .899 in the same season is the signature of a goaltender having a very hard year with occasional very good nights. Arizona’s goaltending was measured at 8.4 goals worse than expected across the season, 22nd in the league.
102 career games, 3,339 shots, a career save percentage of .899 — the number has not moved in two seasons.
The Physical Game
6-4 and 221, and he is a big goaltender who plays big — he takes up space in the middle of the net and relies on the shooter running out of room rather than on reaction.
The puck-handling is genuinely useful and above average for the position, which matters more than usual behind a defence corps that struggles to exit the zone. The lateral movement is where the size costs him: he is beaten across the crease more than a smaller goaltender would be.
The Mental Game
1,670 shots in 50 games is 33 a night, and doing that behind a club with the 31st-ranked penalty kill is a specific test of temperament rather than technique.
He has not visibly broken under it, and the three shutouts say the level is in there. What he has not shown is the ability to steal a game the club has no business winning, which is what separates a starter from a man who plays fifty games because somebody has to.
The Intangibles
A hundred and forty-fifth overall in 2015 to Nashville, who never signed him, and he was 25 and playing in Czechia before Arizona brought him over.
He is 27. Two seasons of .899 is a large enough sample to be a description rather than a slump, and the club’s decision this year is whether he is the goaltender who bridges the rebuild or the one being kept warm for somebody else.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
“he takes up space in the middle of the net and relies on the shooter running out of room rather than on reaction”
“The puck-handling is genuinely useful and above average for the position”
“he is beaten across the crease more than a smaller goaltender would be”