Can Alexandar Georgiev continue this run for the Colorado Avalanche?

Alexandar Georgiev has been hot to start this season. The Colorado Avalanche, in turn, have been playing great team hockey and stand 5-0-0 after five games. They’ve obtained the maximum ten points out of five games, and by all accounts look to be headed for an excellent season.

Georgiev, the Bulgarian netminder, has played every game so far this season and already has a shutout. He’s played so well that he’s recently been named the second star of the week by Full Press Hockey.

Georgiev is in high company in this regard with Alex DeBrincat off to a blistering start, as is Sam Reinhart. The Avalanche have a ton of star power dotting their roster, but Georgiev has arguably been the best player on the team thus far.

He’s played every game so far. He’s also won every game so far. His five wins lead the NHL.

Georgiev is really seeing the puck well so far this season with a .943 save percentage. Through five games,  this is not a small sample size, as he already has 132 saves. That equates to an average of over 26 saves per game.

The defense as a unit needs some praise, and rightfully so, as the team has allowed only 1.6 goals per game. The unit has not changed much, if at all, through five games either, which is contrary to the forward group whose lines have been shuffled quite often.

Aside from praising the defensive unit, most of the praise should be heaped upon Georgiev. He’s got a 1.58 goals against average and already has a shut-out this season (as previously mentioned) and is playing extremely well.

Georgiev is doing some of his best work when it matters most—on the penalty kill. Anyone who knows hockey knows that your team’s best penalty killer must be its goalie. With that said, the Colorado Avalanche are currently tied for 2nd in the NHL with an almost 96 percent success rate on the penalty kill. Goaltender success correlates to overall penalty kill success.

There are other reasons for that success rate of course, cough Logan O’Connor cough, but as well as Georgiev has been playing gives the penalty kill an opportunity to be successful regardless of how well the skaters can prevent opportunities for the opposing team.

There will be a time when Georgiev cools off, it’s inevitable. The NHL plays a grinding 82-game season which includes plenty of ups and downs. The Avalanche at some point will have to see what the backup goalie can offer to the team, whether it be Pavel Francouz or someone else like Prosvetov, who’s with the club now.

Based on previous seasons, Georgiev can certainly sustain this type of success. He had 40 wins in the regular season last year in just 62 games.

If he has further dialed in his positioning and mechanics during the offseason and this is the result, the rest of the league better be very careful that they don’t get run out of the arena playing against the Colorado Avalanche.