In Game 7 down in Tampa this past Friday, the New York Islanders saw themselves down 1-0 as the clock continued to dwindle down. Te Islanders seemed to be a step behind the defending champion Lightning all game long, but it was the play of veteran goaltender Semyon Varlamov who stood tall to give his team a fighting chance.

He stopped 30 of 31 shots he faced, making big-time saves left and right as Tampa put on the pressure.

While the result ended with that score, the play by Varlamov in that decisive game was a microcosm for how he played throughout the entirety of the NHL season.

Given the defensive structure that head coach Barry Trotz has instilled in place since his arrival, the Islanders netminders have benefited immensely from it. Robin Lehner was able to turn his career around after a pit stop in New York, while Varlamov over the last two seasons did somewhat of the same. That structure, while beneficial, should not take away from what Varlamov did this season.

In a shortened 56-game campaign filled with mediocrity, Varlamov was anything but.

Varlamov ended the regular season having sported a 2.05 GAA with a .929 SV% (best in NHL), both career bests through 13 years in the NHL.  He recorded seven shutouts (best in NHL) surpassing his career-high of five that he put up during the 2014-15 campaign. If you look back to his first season with the Islanders (2.62 GAA, .914 SV%, 2 SO), it was a rather vast improvement.

And that improvement mattered this season more than ever, given the decrease in the Islanders offense once captain Anders Lee went down in the second week of March. The team in front of him struggled to muster chances, which meant that he had to be as dominant as ever to steal wins when he could. His improvement in his Goals-Saved Above Average (GSAA) statistic goes to show how important his play was to getting the Islanders into the playoffs.

He ended the season with a 22.0 GSAA, which was the best in the NHL.  That was a 17.6 point difference in that category from his 2019-20 campaign.

Out of all the goaltenders who played 1,800 or more minutes (30 starts), Varlamov ranked fourth with a high-danger SV% (HDSV%) of .847. His high-danger GSAA (HDGSAA) ranked second, at 1.02. He came up big more often than not.

In Game 56 of the regular season, Varlamov was taken out after one period of play following an injury to his knee. That led to rookie netminder Ilya Sorokin starting postseason play. After Sorokin’s play got the Islanders to the second round, Varlamov took back the crease midway through the Boston Bruins series and was integral in the Islanders making it to the conference final for the second-consecutive season. He left it all on the ice against the Lightning,  one of, if not, the toughest offensive teams in all of hockey.

When we look back at Varlamov’s play this postseason, the numbers don’t jump off the table. He ended the postseason with a .922 SV% and a GAA of 2.56 in 14 games. But there were times where the Islanders were heavily outplayed and it was the timely stops by Varlamov that were key in grinding out wins this postseason.

On Sunday during the exit interviews, Varlamov spoke about his late-season injury, the team, Sorokin, and more.