I'm a big eye test guy, but Varly isn't coming close to sniffing that either. He has given up plenty of bad goals this and past seasons. There are always bounces and bad luck goals that happen to every goalie, over time they balance out. The last 2+ seasons Varly has been at .908. That is bad, really bad for a starting NHL goalie. Over that time, Varly has played 99 games. There have been 42 other goalies that have played 75 games... Varly is 37th in save percentage only beating out Niemi, Lehtonen, Ward, Condon, and Domingue (funny enough Bernier is just a sliver ahead). The number of .915 that I threw out would put him around the likes of Markstrom, Greiss, Riemer, Halak, Darling, Rask, Rinne, Talbot, Anderson, Allen, Smith etc. Some good starters in there, but few world beaters. The range between .914 and .916 encompasses numbers 16-30 on that 42 goalie list. It isn't like that is asking the world, or even top 10... It is asking him to be NHL starter level in that area.
Part of what you're illustrating with the shots really fits my argument that Roy's system greatly inflated goalie stats. The statistical proof is there, and it is plain as day. Berra, Pickard, and Varly all produced good numbers under Roy. 2 of the 3 are not in the league right now (though Picks should be), and all have dropped off away from Roy. People go back to the 13-15 Varly seasons (even if Varly had some struggles in 14-15, he was solid), see what he did there, and think Varly is that level of goalie. I think it was a mirage and the perfect timing for that to happen. He has the physical talent to be that goalie, but has puck tracking issues and has always had injury issues. The latter might be catching up to him. It is still early in the season, but I don't think he looks as athletic as he used to be... and I don't think he is a goalie that will deal with lesser athleticism well.
Over the past 2+ seasons, I haven't seen Varly as a starting capable goalie. He has great moments and flashes, but he doesn't look like a good, or even average NHL starting goalie over that time frame. Combine that with is 5.9m cap hit, I'm sorry, but the expectation should be at least above average. If he can't hit that, you're better off paying between 3-4m for an average starter, and using the extra 2-3m on depth. I've argued this for years.
I have to take issue with characterizing this year as giving up “plenty of bad goals.” That simply isn’t the case at all. He’s given up a few, mostly due to not covering rebounds which he has an issue with sometimes, but plenty of bad goals would be way more in my mind.
Not to mention, every goaltender gives up a few bad goals every season. The question is, how many does he give up the rest of the way. If it’s not that many, then he’s likely played just fine this season. If he has more and more the rest of the year, then it’s fair to say he had a poor season.
I also have to take issue with the sample you’re using to evaluate his .908 from 2015-16 to now. Last season was an anomaly. Factoring that into his save percentage over the course of 2+ seasons just gives you a misleading conclusion.
2015-16 he had a .914 on a bad team. This year if you take out that one Vegas game like I said, he’s also got a .914.
Then there’s last season where the team was bad to begin with, then had some key injuries, a coach that wouldn’t adapt, a team that clearly just gave up after EJ went down, and a goaltender with a bum hip/groin that needed surgery.
If you look at the save percentage of any goaltender's worst season like Varly’s last year, and combine that with the percentage from the following season, plus 18 games, you’re not going to get a pretty number.
It’s just not fair to include Varly’s numbers from that season, unless you’re only talking about that season.
At this point though, there simply aren’t enough bad goals this year to be overly concerned with his play. He played great early, and for the most part has been solid since. The team in front of him has been up and down and all over the place. This is the problem.
This conversation also gets back to the fundamental idea that myself and others have tried to emphasize. You can’t look at numbers for goalies on bad teams. They are gonna be off.
Comparing his save percentage to the rest of the goalies in the league has the same problem because he’s arguably played for the worst team in the league since that time. This carries with it the same problem of judging a goaltender on a bad team, based on save percentage.
Not to mention you can't exactly use games played for your sample on everything, because he missed a significant amount of time. So you're comparing the numbers of a certain amount of goalies that played the same or more games in a backup, or split time role, with Varly who played a tougher starters role, but missed games due to injury.
On top of that, there’s an affect on goalies that get bombarded with shots and grade A scoring chances, where they start to just get beaten down mentally and physically. Good goalies have to deal with this to an extent and still perform well, but we have to admit there’s a limit somewhere.
I’m not sure it’s reasonable to expect any top goaltender in the league to play for a terrible defensive team, multiple years in a row, and have good numbers every single year. Eventually it will catch up to you. It’s human nature, and I think Varly started to deflate a bit after getting the crap kicked out of him every night.
One goalie stat that I’d really like to drill down on, but don’t have the time, or know of a site that does it for me, is shots against per minute played over the course of the last 2+ seasons. Or perhaps during his time in Colorado. I have a feeling Varly would be pretty high on this list.
You can’t use total shots against since Varly missed a decent amount of time to injury, and you can’t use shots against per game played, or game started since that’s too situational and misleading. Shots per minute, and only among starting goaltenders (not necessarily above a certain games played threshold) I think would be a pretty telling stat in terms of how bombarded Varly has been in Colorado. Even more so would be grade A scoring chances per minute. I feel like there’s a good chance Varly leads all starters by a mile on that one.
I did compare Cam Talbot to Varly in this regard though, who has faced the total most shots with 4394 since 2015-16. Rounding the seconds up/down to the minute, Talbot has faced .503 shots per minute on average since 2015-16.
Varly has faced .547 per minute since 2015-16. Using that average (which isn’t entirely accurate since we don’t know exactly how many shots he’d face if he hadn’t missed those games) if Varly would have played the 8735 minutes that Talbot has in that time, instead of his 5557 minutes due to injury, he would have faced 4778 shots.
That’s 384 more shots since 2015-16 than the goaltender who’s faced the most shots in the NHL during that time. Again, not entirely accurate, but close enough to give a pretty good impression of what’s been asked of Varly on a nightly basis.
