Pyotr Kochetkov

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

9 appearances, 6-2-0, a 2.33 goals-against average and a .900 save percentage with 1 shutout. His career figure across 125 games is .9042 — the best of any goaltender who played for this club last season.

The Physical Game

6-3, 196, and an unusually athletic goaltender for the modern game. He is not a pure positional blocker; he tracks hard, moves well laterally, and makes saves out of broken plays that a bigger, deeper goaltender would not reach.

The trade-off is that he can look scrambly, and against clean looks from distance he sometimes fights pucks he should be swallowing.

The Mental Game

9 appearances is nothing, and the interesting thing is why there were only 9. He has 125 games and a career .904 and he sat behind an undrafted 27-year-old rookie with a .894.

Whatever the reason, he stopped .901 across his last 8 and did not visibly sulk.

The Intangibles

Carolina’s goaltending came in 13 goals worse than the chances it faced, on a club that led the league in shot-attempt share and finished 2nd on the penalty kill. That is the single largest correctable weakness on any contending roster in this book.

Kochetkov has the best career numbers of the goaltenders here and the fewest games of them. He is 27, a second-round pick, and if this club is serious about the spring, the net is the question it has to answer.

There is a strong case it is already on the roster.