After the final game of the San Jose Sharks’ regular season, goaltender Alexandar Georgiev revealed that he’d already met with GM Mike Grier.
Georgiev was informed that the team would move in a different direction in the crease and not re-sign the pending UFA.
Hearing that information be revealed so quickly after the season ended caught reporters off guard. However, Grier explained why Georgiev was able to discuss the decision so quickly.
“Georgie had a flight, so he couldn’t really stick around too long,” Grier said. “He asked to meet earlier, and I let him know we’d probably be going in a different direction.”
In 31 games with the Sharks, Georgiev had seven wins, a .875 save percentage, and a 3.88 GAA. His save percentage was actually .001 higher with the Sharks than with the Avalanche. Mackenzie Blackwood was dealt to the Avalanche as part of the deal for Georgiev.
Grier went further to explain why the Sharks are moving on from Georgiev.
“[Yaroslav Askarov] will get a chance to be one of the two goalies up here. Whether he’s the 1 or the 1B is going to be up to him. How he performs, trains in the summer, and prepares to come in here,” Grier said. “We’re not going to just hand him the role and say, ‘You’re playing 60 games next year.” He’s going to get the ice time that he earns and deserves.”
What is Grier looking at for the Sharks’ crease
With Georgiev gone, Mike Grier must bring another goalie to the San Jose Sharks. Georgi Romanov showed signs of being a capable goalie in the NHL, but Grier wants a serviceable backup.
“I don’t think it would be ideal to have two young and inexperienced guys in the net. There’s all different levels of veterans,” Grier said. “There might be guys who have played three or four years, then there’s the guys that have been in the league for ten years. We’ll look at all those guys. Our goalie group, myself and the staff, we’re assessing right now, personality-wise, of what we think would work best with Askarov.”
While Askarov is the Sharks’ goalie of the future, Grier continued to preach internal competition for his roster construction.
“We’ll find another goalie to come in here and tandem with him [to] push him. He’s not Connor Hellebuyck, where we’re going to go out there and just say, “I need a [backup] to give me 20 games,” right? We need someone who’s going to push him. Even be the [No. 1] guy if Askarov doesn’t perform well,” Grier said. “I think it’s important for us to have competition. I’ve talked about that from day one, the importance of competition on the roster and in goal, it’s no different.”
Askarov will man the crease for the Calder Cup Playoffs for the San Jose Barracuda. He will be the backbone to any playoff success they have this postseason.
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