Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

72

Sergei Bobrovsky

Florida Panthers Goaltender

A .9149 across 700 games, undrafted, and the reason a club that finished 26th at finishing has a Stanley Cup.

SeasonTeamGPWLOTLGAGAASOSASV%
2010-11PHI54281381302.5901527.915
2011-12PHI2914102783.020769.899
2012-13CBJ3821116742.0041084.932
2013-14CBJ58322051312.3851699.923
2014-15CBJ51301731342.6821632.918
2015-16CBJ3715191972.7511049.907
2016-17CBJ63411751272.0671854.931
2017-18CBJ65372261582.4251993.921
2018-19CBJ62372411532.5891756.913
2019-20FLA50231961513.2311505.900
2020-21FLA311982882.910935.906
2021-22FLA5439731372.6731566.912
2022-23FLA50242031453.0711466.901
2023-24FLA58361741352.3761584.915
2024-25 so far
Career7003962245517382.594420419.915

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

58 games, 36-17-4 with a .9148 and a 2.37, facing 1,584 shots, with 6 shutouts.

The club’s goaltending came in 24.7 goals better than the chances it faced, third in the league, and he faced almost all of them. His career line across 700 games is a .9149 — last season was his career rate to three decimal places, which after fourteen seasons is a remarkable thing to be able to write.

The Physical Game

He is 6-2 and 180 and plays an aggressive game, coming to the top of the crease and cutting the angle down rather than waiting on his line.

At 180 pounds he has no choice: there is not enough of him to block a net from the paint. The lateral recovery is the best part of him and always has been, and he gets across on a cross-ice pass later than a bigger goaltender and arrives anyway. He tracks the puck through traffic as well as anybody in the league, which on a club that concedes as many outside shots as this one is the difference between a save and a rebound.

The Mental Game

He spent three years being the most criticised contract in hockey and said nothing about it in public.

The reputation for playoff collapse followed him from Columbus for a decade and he has now won a Stanley Cup with a .915. Whatever the mechanism is by which a goaltender is supposed to be mentally unsuited to April, he has disproved it in the only way available.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, out of Novokuznetsk, fourteen seasons, 700 games, 396 career wins and 44 shutouts. Two Vezinas and a Cup.

396 wins is second in this edition behind Marc-Andre Fleury. He is 36 and the save percentage has not moved in fourteen years, and the number of goaltenders for whom that stays true at 37 is small.