Colorado Avalanche Player Grades: The Goalies

You all know what player grades are. Just about every blog for every team does them. And if you don’t know, it’s pretty self-explanatory, you’ll pick it up. The players are graded on an A+ - F scale. So we’ll start the last line of defense: the Goalies. Here. We. Go.

Semyon Varlamov: Grade C. Some will say “That’s way too low for the team Varly was on!” Well yes, Varlamov did not have a great supporting cast to help him out. But our logic behind the C grading is this: In games Varlamov played great, he deserves an A. In games Varlamov wasn’t great, he deserved an F. Everyone writing for us has, combined, seen all the Avs games this season. Varlamov was spectacular, and on many occasions, the only reason the Avs picked up 1 or 2 points. But when he was bad, he was bad. Varly gets rattled, pouts, and that affects his play. Look at his road record. 1-14-2. That isn’t just because of the Avs play as a whole. Varlamov was awful most of those games. He won 11 of 33 starts. A C is being generous.

J.S. Giguere: Grade A-/B+. Some will say “That’s way too high, you just put that because of his comments on the Vegas trips!” (By the way Shane O’Brien, you having fun in Vegas with Paul Bissonette?). Well yea, his comments have a lot to do with his high grade. But as a backup goalie, the way you help your team off the ice is just as important as the way you help them on the ice. Remember Peter Budaj? Kyle Turris does. When Budaj was backup for the Avs it was like having another coach on the bench. Budaj also acted as video coordinator, or so it seemed. It helped his team and so did Gigure. Not just with the Vegas stuff. And on the ice, in the latter half of the season, Giguere was the better goalie by far over Semyon Varlamov. He played solid, got the Avs a few more points, lit a fire under the behinds of the lazy, distracted teammates, and earned his A-/B+.

Sami Aittokallio: Grade C+. We definitely had to google his name. Google: The new spellcheck. So some might find it weird to give him a grade based on his 49:20 TOI. (Had to google that too). But we figured what the heck, there’s only 2 other goalies. So why C+? Because Aittokallio looked good in net for the Avs.  Not just because he is a baby faced blonde that looks like the 6^th member of One Direction, but he was solid, had great positioning, controlled his rebounds, and made some big saves. This is of course not applicable to the first few minutes of his NHL career. But Aittokallio is going to be a good goalie. He showed that with Finland at the World Juniors a few years ago. But hey, Sami: Next time you’re thirsty, try taking a page out of Zdeno Chara’s book entitled “What to drink on the way to a Stanley Cup whilst you’re feeling dehydrated on the bench wondering how you can shamelessly plug a soft drink company for obvious under the table cash that is so much money you don’t even care that you will get in trouble by the league that bends over for their sponsors”. Apparently that’s a working title.

Up Next: Player Grades: The defense.

(Spoiler alert: They should all be getting letters sent home from the principal recommending summer school)