Luckily for the Columbus Blue Jackets they aren’t paying rookie goaltender Elvis Merzlikins his true worth this season. The 25-year-old native of Riga, Latvia, who was named after Elvis Presley, is making just $874,125 this campaign but has been one of the top goalies in the NHL lately.
Many Columbus fans expected the worst when two-time Vezina Trophy winner Sergei Bobrovsky left the team as an unrestricted free agent last summer and signed a huge multi-year, contract with the Florida Panthers. This left the club with Joonas Korpisalo and Merzlikins as the team’s two untested goaltenders by default this season.
However, Korpisalo was injured at the tail end of December and Merzlikins has been on fire ever since replacing him as the number-one. Merzlikins posted his fifth shutout in eight games on Feb. 7th when he blanked the Detroit Red Wings 2-0 at home. It was also his second straight shutout and fifth of the season which is currently the tops in the NHL.
The victory against Detroit was the eighth in a row for the young goaltender but his streak was halted the next night with a narrow 2-1 loss at the hands of the Colorado Avalanche. Since taking over as the Blue Jackets’ starter, the rookie has posted an impressive record of 12-3. The eight-game winning streak is the longest in the club’s history for a rookie goalie and the longest for any rookie in 2019/20.
Washington Capitals’ newcomer Ilya Samsonov won seven straight outings earlier in the campaign between Dec. 27th and Jan. 31st. Merzlikins is now one of just nine rookie goalies in NHL history to post an eight-game winning streak. Jordan Binnington of the St. Louis Blues managed to reel off nine straight victories last season.
In addition, Merzlikins became just the sixth NHL netminder since 1930 to post five shutouts over a span of eight games. The last goalie to achieve the feat was the Phoenix Coyotes’ Brian Boucher in 2003/04. In fact, Boucher recorded five straight shutouts in his streak. However, just one other rookie has managed to pull it off and that came back in 1938/39 when the Boston Bruins’ Frank Brimsek managed it.
Due to the fine play of Merzlikins, Columbus has a record of 30-17-9 season for 69 points and is 9-1-1 over their past 11 games. They have also gone 19-3-5 since December 9th with 43 of their points coming since then. As of Feb. 9th they were hanging on to the third and final playoff spot in the Metropolitan Division, just one point ahead of the New York Islanders and two in front of the Philadelphia Flyers and Carolina Hurricanes.
Perhaps the play of Merzlikins shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise though. The 6-foot-3-inch, 180 lb goalie was taken in the third round of the 2014 NHL Entry Draft by Columbus with the 76th overall pick. He then won several awards while playing internationally for Latvia and for HC Lugano in the Swiss National League. He was named the league’s top goalie in 2015/16 and 2017/18 and then signed with the Blue Jackets last March.
Merzlikins made his NHL debut in October of this season and was shelled for seven goals by the Pittsburgh Penguins. He was then sent down to play in the American Hockey League with the Cleveland Monsters in November before being recalled. He caught a big break when Korpisalo was injured on Dec. 30th and Merzlikins won his first NHL game on New Year’s Eve with a 4-1 victory over the Florida Panthers.
As of Feb. 9Th, Merzlikins was top-five in the NHL in goals-against average at 2.19, first in save percentage at 93.0 and first in shutouts with five. Unless he completely goes of the rails the rest of the way this season it looks like Merzlikins should be in for a big raise since his current contract is for just one year.