Armchair Hockey Scout

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2024-25 edition Ask a direct question about this edition of the book — who, how many, how common, which group more — and it is answered with a table computed on this page from the edition’s index: the season line, height and age, the on-ice percentiles, the grades and the traits read out of every report. Ask for a view on named players — what a comparison comes down to, what makes a man — and you get the book’s reading of their own pages, and only those. The model turns your question into a query and phrases the result, or reads the pages it is handed; it never originates a figure, and an answer carrying a figure that is on neither the table nor the pages is withheld. It does not forecast, and it says so when a question is outside what the book holds.

Tables are computed on this page from the 2024-25 edition’s index; readings rest on the players’ own pages; the model never counts. Twenty questions an hour.
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40

Semyon Varlamov

New York Islanders Goaltender

Six hundred and eleven games, 286 wins, 41 shutouts, and a .9176 at 36.

SeasonTeamGPWLOTLGAGAASOSASV%
2008-09WSH6401132.370159.918
2009-10WSH261546652.552718.909
2010-11WSH271195582.232759.924
2011-12COL53262431362.5941564.913
2012-13COL3511213983.0231007.903
2013-14COL63411461462.4122013.927
2014-15COL57282081412.5651791.921
2015-16COL57272531482.8121714.914
2016-17COL246170763.381745.898
2017-18COL51241661282.6821595.920
2018-19COL49201991362.8721496.909
2019-20NYI45191461102.6221278.914
2020-21NYI3619114722.0471020.929
2021-22NYI3110172872.912978.911
2022-23NYI231192602.702689.913
2023-24NYI281484692.603837.918
2024-25 so far——————————
Career—6112862286815432.644118363.916

This Season So Far

The 2024-25 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

28 games, 14-8-4, a .9176 save percentage and a 2.60 goals-against average with 3 shutouts on 837 shots faced.

That was the better of the two save percentages in this crease, against a career .9160 across 611 games. Three shutouts in twenty-eight starts at 35 is a very good season by any reading of it.

The Physical Game

He is 6-2 and 201 and plays higher in his crease than Ilya Sorokin does, challenging the shooter and recovering across on athleticism.

Forty-one career shutouts in 611 games. He is quicker across the crease than a 36-year-old has any right to be and that is the part of the game that has held up. He handles the puck well and is willing to leave the net.

The Mental Game

Rebound control is the weaker half — the aggressive depth means more pucks end up loose than they do at the other end of the tandem.

He tracks well through traffic and has done for sixteen seasons. Twenty-eight games a year is the arrangement now and he has been better at it than most starters.

The Intangibles

Twenty-third overall in 2006 by Washington, out of Samara, sixteen seasons across three organisations, 611 games, 286 wins and 41 shutouts at a career .9160.

He is 36 and put up the best save percentage on his club. Two Russian goaltenders over 29 and nothing behind them is the most obvious risk on this roster and also the reason it got to ninety-four points.

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.

  • plays-aggressivea strength· meets the shooter at the top of the crease

    “He is 6-2 and 201 and plays higher in his crease than Ilya Sorokin does, challenging the shooter and recovering across on athleticism.”

  • plays-deephe lacks it· takes the net away by occupying it

    “He is 6-2 and 201 and plays higher in his crease than Ilya Sorokin does, challenging the shooter and recovering across on athleticism.”

  • lateral-recoverya strength· post-to-post, and across the slot

    “He is quicker across the crease than a 36-year-old has any right to be and that is the part of the game that has held up.”

  • puck-handlinga strength· starts the breakout himself

    “He handles the puck well and is willing to leave the net.”

  • rebound-controlhe lacks it· where the second chance ends up

    “Rebound control is the weaker half — the aggressive depth means more pucks end up loose than they do at the other end of the tandem.”

  • tracks-traffica strength· finds it through a screen

    “He tracks well through traffic and has done for sixteen seasons.”