Robert Kristan is the Player of the Month of November

14 Dec 2011 | Vicko Ivanković

Kristan is a goaltender who plays for KHL Medveščak Zagreb of EBEL. During the month of November he played 8 games in which he grabbed 7 wins, with 3 shutouts, a save percentage of 94.6% and GAA 1.71. In a Facebook vote Eurohockey.com's visitor decided that he deserves the award European Player of the Month.

Robert Kristan helped Medveščak to get to the third spot in the league and he is certainly one of the most deserved for that success. He missed the start of the season because of injury and played his first game of the season on October 21st against Graz. Medveščak won that game 6-1 and ended a six game losing streak. Since then Medveščak started playing great and the return of Kristan certainly made positive impact on the team's performances. Since then he has been incredible in the goal and very quickly he became goaltending leader of EBEL in almost all categories. That is not something new to him because last season he finished as a leader in the save percentage category with 92,5%.

Kristan is 28 years old Slovenian goalie who started his career in the club HK Acroni from his hometown Jesenice. He made debut for the senior team in 2000 and he stayed in Jesenice till 2007 when he went to play in Swedish Elitserien team Brynäs. Needs to be mentioned that his stay in Jesenice from 2000 t0 2007 was interrupted in the season 2002/2003 when he played in another Slovenian club HDD Olimpija from Ljubljana. After one season in Sweden he came back to Jesenice for one season. Then he got another offer from Sweden and went back for the season 2008/2009. He played for Mora in Allsvenskan. After that season he got an offer from Medveščak and decided to sign for the Croatian club where he established himself as the best goaltender in EBEL. He is also starting goaltender of the national team of Slovenia and he played in 5 World Championships. He was especially successful in the last one in Slovakia.

There were some rumours that he might go to KHL but he proved his loyalty to Medveščak by signing a new contract after the end of last season. He is very popular among the fans and teammates and he is also very satisfied as a part of KHL Medveščak.

Past winners
October 2011 - Jakub Petružálek
September 2011 - Tomas Zaborsky
April/May 2011- André Rankel
March 2011 - Martin Ruzicka
February 2011 - Petri Vehanen
January 2011 - Antti Pihlström
December 2010 - Jakub Stepanek