Rosner: Islanders Semyon Varlamov Playing Less Effecting Performance

It has been an incredible season for New York Islanders starting netminder Semyon Varlamov. Currently, the 32-year old veteran sits with a 2.23 GAA and a .923 SV%. He has been a monumental reason to why the Islanders sit atop the East Division standings. Despite the stellar statistics, we have seen Varlamov take a minor step back in his overall effectiveness as the season has progressed. This can be accredited to him not be relied upon as much as the season has gone on.

Let me explain.

Goaltenders are creatures of habit. When a goaltender is on his game, the confidence builds and that player, like any player, wants to keep playing. But for netminders at the NHL level, breaks are needed. We saw last year how dominant Varlamov was in the playoffs before he started to show signs of fatigue.

For Varlamov, he had started off this season as good as any over his 13-year career. The ability to keep that level of play up throughout the entirety of this 56-game regular season would be challenging. He has come back to earth a bit but still has been at the top of his game…most nights.

Through the first month of the season, Varlamov started six of the Islanders’ nine games. It would have been seven if it had not been for a Cal Clutterbuck warm-up shot to the collar bone before the second game of the season. Over that span, he posted a record of 3-2-1 but had impressed with a .924 SV% with a 2.00 GAA. The Islanders struggled out of the gate to produce offensively, so his play was monumental in the Islanders’ ability to collect points.

Rookie netminder Ilya Sorokin had shown early on that he would need time to get acclimated to the NHL game, as he struggled in his first couple of starts.

As February came and went, Varlamov handled the majority of the workload yet again, as he started 10 of the 12 games on the schedule. He continued to impress as he went 6-2-2, as he finished the month with the same SV%, .927. His GAA had ever-so-slightly increased to 2.27.

Again, still very impressive.

This month, head coach Barry Trotz realized that he was overworking his veteran starter. With Sorokin showing glimpses of what we saw over in the KHL, he felt comfortable alternating between the two netminders.

The Islanders continued to win, and it seemed like a situation of “no harm, no foul”. Through the team’s first 13 games of the month, Varlamov had started seven of those games. He had continued to collect wins (5-2-2), with a slight decrease in both SV% and GAA, .919 and 2.28, respectively.

As the season has progressed, we have seen some outings where Varlamov has just been good enough to get the job done. Not playing as many games as of late has allowed Varlamov to get rest, but also has seen him make mistakes that he just was not making when he was playing night in and night out.

It’s nothing major, just the little things.

Given the strong play of Sorokin this past weekend and the cancellation on Tuesday, Varlamov had to wait a full week before getting back in between the pipes. Despite his dominance over the Boston Bruins this season, his lack of play as of late added some rust to his game. Like he has done as of late, Varlamov found a way to battle and help his team pick up another two points.

Early on, Varlamov struggled to track pucks and control his rebounds. As the game went on we saw glimpses of his usual self, but he was never really able to get comfortable.

“We all dug in and that’s why we were able to come back,” said Jean-Gabriel Pageau.  “A couple of big saves by Varlamov gave us a boost and then the goal.”

He allowed two goals in the first period, both finding their way in through screens in front. Earlier in the year, Varlamov was out at the top of his crease on seemingly every shot, screened or not. Last night, on the first goal, he failed to do that. It was a similar storyline on the second goal, off the stick of Steve Kampfer, but at least Varlamov came out.

Despite the struggles last night, Varlamov found a way to come up with critical saves in key moments. This save on Craig Smith late in the third was his biggest of the night.

For Varlamov, it is easy to see why he struggled last night. No hockey action in a week will create rust, but he was good enough to get the win. Moving forward, Varlamov is not going to be able to put together stretches of three or four consecutive starts. That means he will need to be able to play effective when called up, which will more than likely be every other game. With the way Sorokin has played over his last eight games (8-0-0, 1.35 GAA, .944 SV%), there is a good chance that Varlamov could see less than equal play over the Islanders’ final 22 games.

Given the Islanders’ defense (ranked first in NHL in GA/GP), Varlamov does not have to be as lethal as he was at the beginning of the year. He just needs to find a way to win when he gets the chance between the pipes.