The Colorado Avalanche revamped their goaltending room by trading away Alexandar Georgiev and Justus Annunen to San Jose and Nashville respectively. In exchange, they got Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood. Both of those goaltenders have panned out tremendously since arriving.
Georgiev was an inconsistent starter for the Avalanche who seemingly lost his starting job to Annunen. His leash was short, simply for the fact that he was, well, inconsistent. Famously, he was referred to as “Fourgiev” by Avs nation, due to the fact that he had way too many four-goals allowed games in his Avalanche tenure.
I know that I used to be very harsh about Georgiev. In my eyes, and like a lot of goaltenders, he allowed some “easy” goals. He looked visibly upset very often, and that is because of some poor play going on in front of him, but also because it seemed like he couldn’t stop anything most of the time.
In two seasons plus 18 games this year, Georgiev’s goals-against average had gotten worse. In 2022-23, it was 2.53, and the Avalanche won 40 games with him in net as he had a .919 save percentage. That led the league that season. In 2023-24, his goals-against average was 3.02, with a .897 save percentage. In 18 games this season, with Georgiev being replaced on multiple occasions, he had an 8-7 record with a save percentage of .874 and a goals against average of 3.38.
Recently, Georgiev spoke about his time with the Avalanche and pointed out the obvious—that the team appeared to lose confidence in him. That obviously goes against what head coach Jared Bednar had stated multiple times when approached after games. Bednar gave a typical “coach’s answer” basically trying to reinforce confidence in Georgiev. Well, that didn’t last very long this time around and Bednar decided when enough was enough.
“The first two games [of this season], I was really bad, and all of a sudden, I felt the trust in the goaltending kind of evaporated there,” Georgiev said recently, ahead of the Avalanche’s game against the Sharks at Ball Arena. Georgiev is expected to get the start on Thursday, so this could potentially set a fire inside of him and give him confidence in his attempt to defeat Colorado.
The Avalanche obviously made the right decision by shipping Georgiev off. I was disappointed when they traded Annunen away, but I couldn’t be happier with the team’s goalie room at this point. The Avalanche are in a great spot, and they likely could have been in an even better spot had they made these moves a tad sooner. Either way, we’re onto San Jose at Ball Arena.