Spartans Honor Nabokov

The first time the St. Louis Spartans honored a player with a retired number, it was for being a "heart and soul" type of player. The second time? Well, he may have been loved here, but his career statistics made a case of their own.

On a chilly Friday night in the Gateway City, Spartans fans gathered especially early for a game against the Vancouver Vipers and honored longtime starting goalie Evgeni Nabokov by putting his number 20 in the rafters next to Matt Walker's number 28.

It was fitting that the ceremony was held with the Vipers in town as he holds many of the franchise's all-time records for that team too.

Playing 14 seasons in the SICHL, Nabokov spent nine of them with either Vancouver or the Chicago/St. Louis franchises. With the Buccaneers/Spartans, he appeared in 370 regular season games, more than 200 more than any other netminder. He won 175 of those games, nearly 100 more than the man in second place. In the playoffs, he appeared in another 55 games and won another 25 (24 and 10 more than second place). He has the most career shutouts. He faced nearly 11,000 shots between regulkar season and playoffs. He has the most minutes played, over 20,000, in the regular season and almost 3,000 more in the playoffs, which is a lead of more than 12,000 over second place. In Vancouver, he holds all these same franchise records, except for the shutouts. Though he is the career assists leader for the Vipers, a record he (only) shares in St. Louis.

The single-season records list is, of course, littered with his name. Of the top five season numbers in the aforementioned six categories, Evgeni Nabokov holds 12 of a possible 30 slots. His 46 wins in 2009-10 will be hard to beat. His 214 games played in 2007-08 through 2009-10 are astonishing. In 2008-09 and 2009-10 Nabokov played 138 HOURS of hockey for the Spartans.

Nabokov is the goalie who backstopped most of the franchise's best playoff years, too. While Dominik Hasek owns most of the team's single-season playoff records becuase he backstopped the team to their only appearance in the Continental Cup Finals, Nabokov owns almost every other record. In the top five single-season records in the top five categories, Nabokov holds 15 of the possible 25 slots. In the last category, Assists, he is literally the only goalie in franchise history with a postseason assist.

Nabokov's career postseason personal record book is similarly lopsided; he owns the top spot in literally every single category.

The St. Louis Spartans are a founding franchise in the SICHL. Their best years have a common thread: they had good goaltending. That thread has three main fibers in it: Hasek's one amazing season, Tim Thomas' one great season and, then there is the giant rope those two wrap around, Evgeni Nabokov's long-term dominant performance in net.

"He had a long, great career," said General Manager Sean Gallagher, "But we were lucky enough to have him for his best years. As a GM, it was great to be able to just not worry about that position. We just threw him out there for years and years and just expected the best. His stats show that he was one of the best. 

"When he left us, it was a major hole in the boat. You could argue that we've never been the same. In the last year we've been able to fortify that position, but it took years to do so. And as good as our new guy [Frederik Andersen] is, just look at the numbers that Nabokov put up here. It'll take him years and years of being a top-end netminder and physical specimen workhorse to get anywhere near Evgeni's numbers.

"That's how important Number 20 was to us."