It sure feels like, season after season, you peek at the list of best goalies in the league and wonder if you’ve accidently inhaled some blue paint fumes.
Right now, the best save percentage in the league belongs to Minnesota’s Jesper Wallstedt, a rookie with a .944 mark who just posted his fourth shutout in six outings on Tuesday versus the Edmonton Oilers.
Next up in save percentage among puckstoppers with at least 10 games played are three career backups in Dallas’ Casey DeSmith (.921), Colorado’s Scott Wedgewood (.920) and Calgary’s Devin Cooley (.920).
In the case of the 28-year-old Cooley, his NHL career was limited to six games prior to the 11 he’s played with Calgary this season.
Getting a grip on what’s going to happen in the crease year-over-year is about as difficult as going post-to-post to stop a one-timer hammered by a super-skilled player wielding a carbon-fibre marvel of technology in his hands.
For all the ways goalie performances can feel volatile, one thing that remains constant is how important it is to get saves. You don’t necessarily need peak Carey Price in there, but no club can hope for high-end results without competent goaltending.
This season has brought a couple extra crease subplots, the first being that back-to-back Vezina Trophy winner and reigning league MVP Connor Hellebuyck is on the sideline right now.
There’s also the reality that, with the Olympics around the corner, many goalies in the league are being watched closely by their national-team brass and there are probably spots to be won with all four of Canada, the U.S., Sweden and Finland.
With all that in mind — and with a third of the season basically in the books — it’s a no-brainer to use this week’s edition of the power rankings as a goalie check for all 32 teams.
1. Colorado Avalanche (19-1-6) It’s one thing to acquire one goalie who uplifts your team, but it’s wild to think — right around this time in 2024 — the Avs went out and got both Scott Wedgewood and Mackenzie Blackwood within about a two-week timeframe and completely transformed their crease outlook. Blackwood started the year injured and Wedgewood is nursing a tight back right now, but Colorado is in great hands.
2. Dallas Stars (18-5-5) Jake Oettinger, who had a shutout in New Jersey on Wednesday night, still feels like he has a gear to go to match the promise we saw from a 23-year-old kid who almost singlehandedly knocked a strong Calgary Flames team out in Round 1 1 of the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Casey DeSmith, meanwhile, has been a dream backup since landing in Dallas ahead of last season, with a .916 save percentage in 34 games as a Star.
3. Tampa Bay Lighting (16-8-2) He’s back, baby! After a back injury hampered his 2023-24 campaign, Andrei Vasilevskiy finished second in Vezina voting last year and has a .926 save percentage in his past 16 contests this season.
4. Washington Capitals (17-9-2) Logan Thompson has the best goals-saved-above-expected-per-60 (GSAE/60) mark in the league (18.6) on Moneypuck. He’s taken control of the Caps crease after splitting it with Charlie Lindgren last season and he’s making a strong case to be Canada’s guy at the Olympics.
5. Carolina Hurricanes (16-7-2) It’s really a tribute to the Canes’ infrastructure that they’re so consistently a good team despite constantly facing questions about two very important aspects of the game: goal-scoring and goaltending. It’s not that Carolina never gets good crease play, it’s just that Frederik Andersen’s three true outcomes are hot, cold and injured, while Pyotr Kochetkov — who’s shown promise — is also no ironman in goal. Right now, the Hurricanes are riding first-year NHL Brandon Bussi and his very respectable .908 SP.
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6. Minnesota Wild (15-7-5) Believe it or not, three rookie goalies won the Vezina Trophy between 1984 and 1991. They are Tom Barrasso (1984), Ron Hextall (1987) and Ed Belfour (1991). No goalie has been able to repeat that feat in nearly 35 years since. Both Barrasso and Belfour also won the Calder, but Hextall lost out to Luc Robitaille. Could Jesper Wallstedt play well (and frequently) enough to win the Vezina, but still lose the Calder to Islanders stud D-man Matthew Schaefer? The issue — and it’s a good one for the Wild — is Minny’s other goalie, Filip Gustavsson, also is a quality puckstopper and he’s played 17 games compared to 10 for Wallstedt. Either way, what a Swedish duo the Wild have going.
7. Philadelphia Flyers (15-8-3) Dan Vladar is proving to be a huge summer acquisition for an organization that’s had all kinds of trouble in the crease in recent seasons. Now is the time for 26-year-old Samuel Ersson to show what he can do, because the Flyers can’t ask too much of Vladar given he’s never played more than 30 games in a season and is already halfway to that number.
8. Pittsburgh Penguins (13-7-5) Tristan Jarry — the subject of many hopeful trade rumours in Pittsburgh in the past thanks to his sizeable contract — has bounced back with a .911 SP this year. Depending on how the season breaks for the Pens, it’s possible Jarry — with two more years to go on his deal — will make his way back onto trade boards thanks to his strong play. The Pens made a nice move to pick up 24-year-old Arturs Silovs from Vancouver in the summer and 21-year-old Sergei Murashov — who’s made three starts in Pittsburgh this year — is one of the best goalies in the AHL.
9. Vegas Golden Knights (12-6-8) Carter Hart, one of five 2018 Canadian world junior championship players acquitted of sexual assault in July, started his first NHL game in nearly two years on Tuesday and got a 4-3 shootout victory over Chicago. With starter Adin Hill on long-term injured reserve, Vegas will need Hart and Akira Schmid to hold the fort.
10. Los Angeles Kings (12-7-7) Getting Darcy Kuemper from Washington in the summer of 2024 has worked out wonderfully for the Kings. Kuemper was a Vezina finalist last season and has strong underlying numbers this year, too. The 35-year-old has a great chance to be part of Canada’s goalie crew in Italy.
11. New Jersey Devils (16-10-1) Don’t you kind of feel like the Devils need Jake Allen to give them high-floor goaltending in the regular season and hope Jacob Markstrom gets hot in the playoffs? Allen has been much more than a steady hand since Jersey got him at the 2024 deadline for a third-round pick. He had better numbers than Markstrom last year and is once posting the better stats of the two this season.
12. Anaheim Ducks (16-10-1) Lukas Dostal was taking command of the Ducks crease when he sustained an upper-body injury about a week ago and he’s expected to miss a couple more weeks. Can anyone else envision this guy leading Czechia to a semifinal run at the Olympics and being tied 1-1 late in the third with Canada or the U.S. once there?
13. Montreal Canadiens (14-9-3) Sam Montembeault’s struggles have been jarring this season, especially after seeing the Quebec native establish himself as a very competent — and oftentimes more than that — goalie in the past couple years. It sure feels like rookie Jakub Dobes — who’s been up and down himself — has a chance to seize the crease now.
14. Ottawa Senators (13-9-4) Linus Ullmark’s GSAE/60 is the worst mark in the NHL among goalies with at least 10 games played. Ullmark has had his moments, but he’s got to put it all together and keep it there for the Sens.
15. New York Rangers (14-12-2) No goalie has played more than Igor Shesterkin this year and the 2022 Vezina winner has been every bit the team MVP the Rangers need him to be. Jonathan Quick — who turns 40 next month — was performing incredibly well as Shesterkin’s backup until a lower-body injury sidelined him late in November.
16. Seattle Kraken (11-7-6) Seattle has three goalies who’ve all played at least five games and have an SP over .900. Starter Joey Daccord has a .902 in 16 contests, Philip Grubauer — finally giving Seattle some return on a big contract — has a .912 in six games, while Matt Murray — who, as you might guess, is sidelined with an injury now — has a .922 in five outings.
17. Boston Bruins (15-13-0) Bruins fans must be breathing a sigh of relief seeing what Jeremy Swayman is doing in Year 2 of a monster deal. After a miserable 2024-25, Swayman is second in the NHL in goals save above expected (17.1), trailing only Logan Thompson (18.6).
18. New York Islanders (14-10-3) Ilya Sorokin’s traditional stats don’t jump off the page, but his underlyings tell you he’s still critically important to any success the Isles have. Understudy David Rittich has been a good backup in his first season on the Island.
19. Toronto Maple Leafs (12-11-3) Joseph Woll has been the Leafs’ unquestioned MVP since he debuted in mid-November. It might take a while, but if Woll can stay healthy until Anthony Stolarz returns from his injury, Toronto should once again have a strong foundation for success in the blue paint.
20. Columbus Blue Jackets (12-9-5) A lot of people were curious to see what Jet Greaves could do after small-sample success last season. The 24-year-old has shown there is indeed some promise there with good traditional and underlying numbers. Elvis Merzlikins, meanwhile, has not been a .900 goalie since 2021-22.
21. Detroit Red Wings (14-11-2) Newcomer John Gibson and veteran Cam Talbot have basically split the workload 50-50 and neither guy has established himself as the guy. Maybe the long-term answer in in the AHL, where Sebastian Cossa — the 15th-overall pick in 2021 — was just named goalie of the month and has a crazy .945 SP on a powerhouse Grand Rapids club.
22. Winnipeg Jets (13-12-1) The good news — and there’s not much of it these days in Winnipeg — is that Connor Hellebuyck appears to be on the early end of the four-to-six week timeline he was given to recover from knee surgery in mid-November. It would be unfair to lay all the blame for the Jets’ struggles without Hellebuyck at the pads of Eric Comrie, but he obviously takes his share of the heat with an .891 SP in seven games since the big guy last played.
23. Edmonton Oilers (11-11-5) Oh boy. Let’s just say the Oilers will be monitoring every possible trade situation closely as the season goes on. What GM Stan Bowman wouldn’t give for his version of the Dwayne Roloson trade Edmonton pulled off nearly 19 years ago before Roloson backstopped them to the 2006 Stanley Cup Final.
24. Florida Panthers (12-12-1) Can you believe we’re at the end of the seven-year UFA deal Sergei Bobrovsky inked with the Cats in 2019? ‘Bob’ went to Florida and became a no-doubt Hall-of-Famer, even if those first couple seasons were a little underwhelming relative to his $10-million hit. He never finished a season with a sub-.900 save percentage, but sits at .883 now on a Florida team that’s obviously going through it. No. 2 Daniil Tarasov has a solid. 907 in eight outings.
25. San Jose Sharks (13-12-3) Jesper Wallstedt is understandably stealing all the freshman hype, but Yaroslav Askarov is having a very fine rookie campaign himself in San Jose. Grabbing him from the Preds was a great move by GM Mike Grier, who surely feels as though he already has the goalie in place for when this team is a contender.
26. Chicago Blackhawks (11-9-6) How can you not feel good for Spencer Knight? The 24-year-old — who spent time in the NHLPA player assistance program to manage OCD when he was part of the Panthers organization — is making the most of his opportunity with the Chicago Blackhawks, posting the third-highest GSAE in the NHL.
27. Buffalo Sabres (11-12-4) Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who missed most of training camp because of a lower-body issue and was in and out of the lineup until late November, has a .916 SP and 3-1-0 record in his past four outings. The Sabres need more of that as they try to inch up the Atlantic Division standings.
28. Utah Mammoth (13-12-4) Karel Vejmelka got a much-needed 7-0 whitewash of the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday. Only Igor Shesterkin and Linus Ullmark have seen more action this year than the Mammoth starter, who posted a rough .876 SP in 12 games leading up to the big win over Anaheim.
29. Nashville Predators (9-13-4) Nothing has gone right in Nashville since the start of last season and Juuse Saros — who finished no lower than sixth in Vezina voting for four straight seasons from 2021 to 2024 — has to take some of the blame with his average showing.
30. St. Louis Blues (9-11-7) After his heroic performance in the final of the 4 Nations Face-Off last February, Jordan Binnington — despite gruesome numbers this year — remains more or less a lock to at least be part of Team Canada’s roster. He and batterymate Joel Hofer will have to get going immediately, though, for the Blues to climb back in the playoff race.
31. Calgary Flames (9-15-4) Dustin Wolf has not been able to match the incredibly high standard he set as a rookie last year, but Devin Cooley — a California boy, just like Wolf — has been an amazing story in Calgary, posting the best GSAE/60 in the NHL.
32. Vancouver Canucks (10-14-3) It’s just a bummer to see Thatcher Demko — the Vezina runner-up in 2024 — hurt again in Vancouver. He’s played a total of 33 games since the end of that 2023-24 campaign and, unlike last season when he really stepped up, Kevin Lankinen has not been able to locate his ‘A’ game in B.C. this year in Demko’s absence.
