Was He Snubbed?

Yesterday, the National Hockey League announced the finalists for the Vezina Trophy, awarded to the league's top goaltender. Among the three finalists, New York Islanders netminder Semyon Varlamov was not one of them. The three finalists are Phillip Grubauer of Colorado, Marc-Andre Fleury of Vegas and Andrei Vasilevskiy of Tampa Bay. So the real question here is, was Varlamov snubbed of a nomination?

Stats may say yes, but eye test says otherwise.

Yes, the other three guys had better records then Varlamov did. Vasilevskiy went 31-10-1, Grubauer went 30-9-1, and Fleury went 26-10-0. Varlamov's record 19-11-4. The other three guys finished one, two and three in wins in the league this year. Varly in his own right had a fine year. His save percentage was 2nd best in the game and his goals against was 4th best. He also tied for the league lead with seven shutouts on the year.

Lets put it like this. I feel Varlamov would have had a much higher win total if in some of his starts, his offense was able to give him a support. I just feel that if the Islanders had put up better numbers he would have pretty much been a lock to win the award this year in my mind, he was playing that well. He kept the Islanders in a lot of games this season that they might not necessarily have had business sticking around in.

Record and numbers only tell cold facts, the eye test does play a factor in this too. He made big saves at the right time for the Islanders and was, on some nights, the best player playing in the Blue and Orange. This is by no stretch taking anything at all away from the three guys who are nominated for the award, which is selected by the General Managers around the NHL. I guess Varlamov didn't do enough to impress the others around the league. He did more than enough here to help get the Islanders to where they are this season. He not only done a fantastic job mentoring young Ilya Sorokin in the Islanders net, but he held his onw and then some between the pipes this year.

No matter how that voting played out, Varlamov was the MVP of the Islanders during the regular season. He was the best Islander player this year and is without a doubt one of the top goaltenders in the league this season.