Islanders Semyon Varlamov highlights: Jaw dropping saves

Watch Semyon Varlamov’s top three saves for the New York Islanders this season.

It was an up and down year for Semyon Varlamov. The New York Islanders goalie started the year well with a 2.22GAA and a 0.918SV% through the first half of his 45 games played. In the back half that changed.

Through his next 22 games played, Varlamov averaged a 2.65GAA and a 0.911SV%. That also coincided with the entire team folding like a house of cards and dropping just outside of the playoff picture when the season was suspended in March.

It certainly wasn’t the way Varlamov would have wanted his first season on the Island to end after a four-year $20 million commitment in free agency from Isles.

Along the way, Varlamov made some truly remarkable stops. Here are just three of his best.

Stops Pat Maroon Cold

“All you got to do is tap it in. Just tap it in” – Chubbs Peterson ‘Happy Gilmore’

That’s all that Pat Maroon needed to do on December 9, as the Tampa Bay Lightning hosted the Islanders at Amelie Arena. Just tap it in.

Alone on the doorstep with the puck on his stick and Varlamov nowhere in reach, all Maroon had to do was tap it in. But somehow Varly came up with this incredibly athletic but equally desperate save.

https://twitter.com/IslesMSGN/status/1204222283348430850

That little bit of hesitation was all it took for Varlamov to get a glove in the way for the save.

Stastny Gets the Paddle

Sometimes a goalie has to bail out his team when the players in front of him just quit on him. That’s what happened on February 15.

The Islanders would lose that night by a score of 1-0 to the Golden Knights but the Isles goalie did everything he could to keep his team in the game.

Varlamov would stop 42 of 43 shots to try and single-handedly will his team into the game with stop after stop. None were as impressive as this paddle stop on Paul Stastny.

Here’s a better view of that stick save.

Everyone in the arena thought it was a goal. Ninety-nine percent of the time that’s a goal. Stastny had the entire net to bury the puck in and somehow Varlamov gets the paddle on it. It’s pure luck. But that’s basically hockey.

Jaw-Dropping Stop on Bjork

Just watch and enjoy this absolute robbery by Semyon Varlamov on Anders Bjork on December 19.

https://twitter.com/NYIslanders/status/1207864023909306368

Even Bjork thought he had this goal but when he sees that Varlamov somehow still came up with the save I’d imagine his jaw-dropped just as Johnny Boychuk’s did.