Sergei Bobrovsky is on the winning path

Russian Florida Panthers goalkeeper Sergei Bobrovsky, without allowing a single goal in his team’s 4-0 win against the Detroit Red Wings, took second place in NHL history in terms of wins among European goalies. Largely thanks to the excellent form of 35-year-old Bobrovsky, Florida is leading the championship and looks like a much more obvious contender for the Stanley Cup than a year ago, when it reached the playoff finals.

This Florida away match was another reason to speculate about the team’s chances in the playoffs. A very good reason. And Detroit coach Derek Lalonde even said that he wouldn’t be at all surprised if she won the Stanley Cup. And you can understand it.

Last year, Florida reached the finals of the playoffs, losing to the Vegas Golden Knights. But that jerk of hers was perceived rather as miraculous, contrary to logic. The club was caught in the top eight of the Eastern Conference, and for a long time the game was so ragged that it seemed like it had no right to dream of any prestigious trophy. But in the most important matches, “Florida” suddenly began to jump above the ceiling that had just looked exceptionally strong.

This season everything is different. After success in the meeting with Detroit at what was essentially the final stretch of the regular season, Florida climbed to the top line of the league’s summary table, and its hockey has been exceptionally balanced for several months now. Or rather, clarification is required here.

The old “Florida” was still more about attack. She’s still doing quite well. Sam Rinehart, who scored his 42nd league goal against Detroit, is second only to Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the sniper race. All is well with the productivity of other celebrities on the team’s offensive line – Matthew Tkachak, Carter Verhaeghi, Alexander Barkov. But, whatever one may say, when talking about Florida, you need to focus on defense. Previously quite flexible, she suddenly became the best in the league if quality is measured by the number of pucks allowed per game on average. For Florida it is 2.36. And the hockey players of the very hot, very sharp Detroit after the New Year, commenting on their failure, were sure to share their impressions about the density of someone else’s defense, which allowed them to shoot on target only 21 times. For an NHL match this is extremely low.

But density is density, and the key element of a concrete wall is still the goalkeeper. Even in the match with Detroit, Florida, with all its accuracy and attentiveness, could well have missed several goals, for example, from Patrick Kane, who twice received killer chances and was stopped twice by Sergei Bobrovsky.

In the last decade, Bobrovsky was the main Russian goalkeeper.

In 2013 and 2017, he was recognized as the strongest in his role based on the results of the championship. But just recently it seemed that the veteran’s time (and Bobrovsky is already 35 years old), whatever one may say, had passed, that he was no longer able to compete on equal terms with the much younger frontmen of the domestic goalkeeper corps in the NHL – Igor Shesterkin, Igor Sorokin. In the previous season, Sergei Bobrovsky even lost his status as Florida’s number one for a long time – until during the playoffs it turned out that he still had gunpowder.

And in the current season, Bobrovsky is playing luxuriously, just like ten years ago, from the very beginning. The match with Detroit was his fourth clean sheet in the championship (and 42nd in his long career). But it’s more correct to illustrate Bobrovsky’s reliability with other numbers. Both in terms of the number of goals conceded on average per game – 2.30, and in the number of victories – exactly three dozen – he is in the top three among all goalkeepers in the league. In terms of percentage of saved shots – 91.8% – formally right behind her, but with a tiny, almost symbolic lag behind Jeremy Swayman of the Boston Bruins and Joey Daccora of the Seattle Kraken, who share second and third positions. None of the Russian goalkeepers have such an excellent statistical set. At the forefront again is Sergei Bobrovsky, who is experiencing an impressive career renaissance, which in the match with Detroit brought him an interesting and honorable personal achievement.

This was Bobrovsky’s 390th overall regular season win.

And according to this indicator, he came into clear second place in NHL history among all European goalkeepers, ahead of none other than the Czech legend Dominik Hasek. Ahead of the Russian from the Europeans is only Swede Henrik Lundqvist, who also retired, with 459 victories.

Alexey Dospehov