Colorado Avalanche, The Right Goaltender Is Crucial

Reto Berra

On the complete other side of the trust spectrum is Reto Berra. He came to the Avalanche two years ago for next to nothing, and I was terrified. His fundamentals in Calgary were absolutely abysmal, (though my editor pointed out to me that he had never had a goalie coach before coming to North America).

Yet this year especially, his game has improved drastically, both in form and on paper. Earlier in the year, when he was on fire I did an in-depth breakdownn of the changes to his form since his Calgary days, but unfortunately we haven’t seen much of Berra lately. The details of his injury that apparently resulted from a pregame soccer match in late December are murky, but I would guess that the front office wasn’t too happy about something seeing as he was then waived — risking losing him to all other 29 teams for free- and sent down.

But if you go back to November, there were many people calling for Berra to join the mightily struggling Varlamov in a platoon — if not flat out replace him. At the time Berra had a 4-3 record and an amazing save percentage .953. Obviously, that wasn’t going to last long, but it shows that Berra is capable of going just as hot as Varlamov can.

And through the entire year Berra has the best save percentage and adjusted save percentage of any of the Avalanche goalies. In fact his adjusted save percentage in 5 on 5 is an outstanding 94.30%. And although he has 3 fewer games played then Pickard and 33 fewer then Varlamov, those numbers speak for themselves.

In addition, the most astounding part of Berra’s performance this year has been his high danger save percentage. On shots faced from the slot and right in front of the net Berra has a phenomenal save percentage of 92.42%. That’s better than both his own and Pickard’s medium danger save percentage! But that’s exactly what the Avalanche need with all the chances they give up low.

It’s disappointing that he got hurt, and frankly astonishing that he was waived, because it seems like he was on pace to have a breakout season. But as of now it seems we won’t see if he was just hot, as he’s been in the minors for nearly a month.

Next: Calvin Pickard