Monday Morning Ramblings: Annunen's Arrival, Knight's Return, Silovs And More.

Welcome fantasy managers to another season of the Monday Morning Ramblings. My name is Mike Ouellet and I am thrilled to be back as a contributing writer here at Goalie Post and look forward to bringing you the Ramblings every second Monday. As always, my goal is to provide you all with some helpful information and direction as it pertains to the leagues goaltending along with some of my own general thoughts thrown into the mix for good measure. With that said, let’s get to it!

This week we’ll be taking a look at some goaltenders that may be flying under the radar as draft season approaches and who fantasy managers may want to target in the later rounds of their respective drafts who I believe could offer some great value over the course of the 2024-2025 NHL season.

Annunen Announces His Arrival

The Colorado Avalanche have finally found a solution in their search for a permanent backup goaltender to incumbent starter Alexandar Georgiev. Justus Annunen, the Avs third-round pick (64th overall) in 2018 acclimated himself quite well in the second half of the 2023-2024 NHL season fashioning an exceptional stat line of 8-4-1 with a sparkling 2.25 goals against and .928 save percentage.

The Avs saw enough from the young 24-year-old netminder to sign him to a two year contract extension through the 2025-2026 season, allowing the Avs to put an end to their ever revolving door of backup goaltenders. This will finally give the team an option to scale back Georgiev’s workload as he has played over 60+ games the past two seasons to quite frankly, mixed results. For leagues that are weighted heavily towards wins totals, Georgiev is a phenomenal source of production. However, for those leagues that involve peripheral stats such as goals against and save percentage, Georgiev may have been more of a detriment to fantasy managers winning their respective weeks than not.

Coach Jared Bednar seems to be quite high on the 6’4” 210lbs youngster, stating in his season opening presser that Annunen would indeed be the Avs permanent backup going forward in hopes of aleviating some of Georgiev workload keeping him fresher for the postseason with an eye toward quality over quantity.

From a fantasy perspective, managers currently employing the services of the Avs starting netminder would be well served in stacking Colorado’s crease. If Annunen continues his strong play from last year's second half, he will certainly earn a bigger piece of the pie and even more so if Georgiev’s peripheral numbers remain below average as we begin the 2024-2025 NHL season.

Fedotov Taking Flight?

Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Ivan Fedotov could be one of the most intriguing prospects at the position heading into this season for a few reasons. The most glaring of which would be the contract the Flyers signed the 27-year-old Russian goaltender to back in April worth 3.25M AAV for the next two years. Compare that to Samuel Ersson’s 1.45M AAV for the same timeframe and one could certainly argue that Flyers will want a solid return on investment and give Fedotov a true opportunity to seize the Flyers crease.

Secondly, with only 63 career games played, Ersson has a relatively small sample size to draw from when it comes to his status as Philadelphia’s undisputed starter. The fact that Ersson’s play continued to decline as the season wore on speaks to the fact the organization is at the very least looking to spell a sizable part of his workload in order to give the youngster a little more rest between starts.

Fedotov does boast some solid numbers from his days in the KHL going 61-55 with an exceptional 2.06 goals against combined with a stout .921 save percentage. Now, all that being said, with John Tortorella behind the bench things can get a little volatile from time to time up and down the roster let alone the goaltending position, so there is a lot of fluidity to the situation as it currently stands.

However, from a fantasy perspective, things seem to be lining themselves up for a timeshare between Ersson and the 6’7” 214lbs Fedotov for the coming season. Thus, giving many fantasy managers either another option for potential spot starts or for any rebuilding/retooling roster to add another intriguing goaltending prospect with upside and perhaps more importantly opportunity.

Silovs Gets Centre Stage

The Vancouver Canucks goaltending situation is less than ideal with the lingering injury to starting netminder Thatcher Demko. Thankfully, with his play in last year's postseason, Arturs Silovs showed Vancouver’s brass enough to earn himself a two year contract with a cap hit of $850,000 AAV over the summer. It seems pretty safe to say that the Latvian netminder will get first crack at the Canucks crease as Demko continues to make his way back from injury.

The 6’4” 203lbs netminder has a very limited body of work in which to pull from having only nine games of NHL experience on his resume. Yet, in those nine games played, Silovs has a record of 6-2-1 combined with a respectable 2.62 goals against with a .898 save percentage. He has shown that he is more than capable in handleing the pressure that comes with being a number one as evidenced by his cool and calm play throughout last year's postseason run for Vancouver.

The team recently signed veteran backup Kevin Lankinen for some added depth at the position but make no mistake about it, Silovs will be the Canucks starter until Thatcher Demko’s return from injury giving the 23-year old some exceptional value heading into the coming NHL season.

Knight’s Successful Return

Ok, I may be cheating on this one just a little bit. Seeing as Spencer Knight may not be as “under the radar” as the other three, though he is still a fit here.

Knight has largely been somewhat out-of-sight/out-of-mind since his voluntary entrance into the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in February of 2023. After having sought help from experts in the field, Knight made a triumphant return with the Panthers AHL affiliate the Charlotte Checkers for the 2023-2024 AHL season.

As Charlotte's undisputed starter, Knight fashioned a solid 25-14-5 record accompanied by a 2.41 goals against and .905 save percentage while re-cementing his status as the Panthers goaltender of the future. Additionally, with Florida having gone deep the past two postseasons the team may be looking for ways to lessen Bobrovsky’s workload as we enter the 2024-2025 NHL season in order to make yet another run in the spring.

From a fantasy perspective, Knight most certainly has the pedigree and skill set to offer some great value whether it be through spot starts in a daily fantasy league or just simply handcuffing Florida’s goaltending down due to the team's style of play if you are in a dynasty/keeper league.

That’s it for me this week but be sure to keep an eye out for next week’s Monday Morning Ramblings as my partner in crime Logan Clarkson will have part one of our collaboration, while I tee up part two the following Monday.

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Thanks for reading and feel free to follow me on X @mikeouellet9

See you all again next Monday!