The Buffalo Sabres have added a new goalie to their roster. The club announced tonight that they have signed netminder Alexandar Georgiev to a one-year, one-way $825k contract.
Georgiev, who is repped by Dan Milstein of Gold Star Hockey, had lingered on the free agent market after a sub-par 2024-25 season. It was just a few years ago that Georgiev was considered one of the NHL’s more promising young goalies. In 2022-23, his first season as the number-one for the Colorado Avalanche, Georgiev went 40-16-6 with a .919 save percentage, landing a seventh-place finish in Vezina Trophy voting. The next season, Georgiev started 62 games for the Avalanche and represented the team at the 2024 NHL All-Star Game. But despite that honor, some cracks were beginning to show in Georgiev’s performance, as his save percentage declined to .898.
Georgiev struggled mightily to begin 2024-25, and through 18 games he had a .874 save percentage. The Avalanche decided to move on from Georgiev in December of last year, dealing him to the San Jose Sharks as part of a larger trade that put Mackenzie Blackwood in position to take up a role as the new number-one goalie in Colorado.
In San Jose, Georgiev failed to find his form. He played in 31 games for the Sharks and went 7-19-4, posting an .875 save percentage whilst playing behind an admittedly poor defensive group. After the season, the Sharks informed Georgiev that he was not in their plans moving forward. After the Sharks’ final game of 2024-25, the netminder told the media, including Sharks Hockey Digest’s Max Miller, that he would not be offered an extension to remain with the club.
By signing with the Sabres, Georgiev has given himself fresh opportunity to re-establish himself as an NHL goalie. The Sabres are not the most obvious fit for Georgiev – they already have Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen entrenched as a starter, and two other netminders with NHL experience set to compete for the role behind him. Top prospect Devon Levi appeared set to battle with Alex Lyon for the right to be Luukkonen’s backup, and now it appears a third name, Georgiev, has entered the mix for that role.
The Sabres signed Lyon to a two-year, $1.5MM AAV contract this summer, and the cap hit of that deal indicates that he enters training camp as the favorite for the spot behind Luukkonen. But this addition of Georgiev adds a new, qualified veteran for the Sabres to consider. With Georgiev playing to re-establish his place as an NHL netminder, Levi fighting to retain his status as one of the game’s top goalie prospects, and Lyon looking to play a third consecutive season entirely in the NHL, the battle for the number-two goalie spot in Buffalo looks set to be one of the more intriguing roster situations to watch in this upcoming preseason.