Pyotr Kochetkov

Last Season

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

The Physical Game

Six foot three, 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

Nine appearances is nothing, and the interesting thing is why there were only nine. 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 eight and did not visibly sulk.

The Intangibles

Carolina’s goaltending came in thirteen goals worse than the chances it faced, on a club that led the league in shot-attempt share and finished first 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.