This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Semyon Varlamov

Sixteen thousand eight hundred career shots across fourteen seasons, and a .9110 that ranked 23rd of 53.

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

2008-09	WSH	6	4	0	1	13	2.37	0	159	.918
2009-10	WSH	26	15	4	6	65	2.55	2	718	.909
2010-11	WSH	27	11	9	5	58	2.23	2	759	.924
2011-12	COL	53	26	24	3	136	2.59	4	1564	.913
2012-13	COL	35	11	21	3	98	3.02	3	1007	.903
2013-14	COL	63	41	14	6	146	2.41	2	2013	.927
2014-15	COL	57	28	20	8	141	2.56	5	1791	.921
2015-16	COL	57	27	25	3	148	2.81	2	1714	.914
2016-17	COL	24	6	17	0	76	3.38	1	745	.898
2017-18	COL	51	24	16	6	128	2.68	2	1595	.920
2018-19	COL	49	20	19	9	136	2.87	2	1496	.909
2019-20	NYI	45	19	14	6	110	2.62	2	1278	.914
2020-21	NYI	36	19	11	4	72	2.04	7	1020	.929
2021-22	NYI	31	10	17	2	87	2.91	2	978	.911
2022-23 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	560	261	211	62	1414	2.64	36	16837	.916

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

31 games, 10-17-2, a .9110 save percentage and a 2.91 goals-against, two shutouts on 978 shots. That is 23rd of the 53 goaltenders who played twenty-five games — the middle of the league.

Twenty-third overall in 2006 by Washington, fourteen seasons, 560 games, 16,837 shots faced, a career .9160.

The Physical Game

6-2 and 201 pounds, an inch shorter than the man who has taken his job.

The career record is the longest in this chapter and it is not a straight line in either direction. .9275 in 2013-14, .8980 in 2016-17, .9294 in 2020-21, .9110 last season. Fourteen seasons and the swing between his best and his worst is 314 points.

Across 16,837 shots the answer is .9160, which is a shade above league average and is what a fourteen-year record is for. The individual seasons are noisier than almost anything else in this book and the career figure is steadier than almost anything else in it.

The Mental Game

The Islanders finished 3rd in the league in goaltending at plus-22.2 goals saved above expectation, and his .9110 is not where that came from: Ilya Sorokin’s .9251 across 52 games is.

The club was outchanced badly — 29th in attempt share, 24th in chances, 27th in expected goals against per 60 at even strength — and finished 10th in goals allowed. Varlamov’s thirty-one starts were roughly a third of that workload at roughly league-average quality.

A 10-17-2 record behind that club says less than it appears to. New York scored 231 goals, 24th in the league.

The Intangibles

He is 34 with 560 NHL games behind him and a starter eight years younger in front of him.

Two seasons ago he posted .9294 across 1,020 shots, which is the second-best full season of his career, at 32. There is no straight-line decline here to point at.

Nothing measures the technique, the temperament or how a fourteen-year professional handles becoming the backup. What the file measures is a career-long .9160 across sixteen thousand shots, a season 50 points below it, and a club that no longer needs him to be more than this.