Goaltending might be the single most important position in hockey. A great NHL goalie can drag a mediocre roster into the playoffs, and a shaky one can sink a team that looks great on paper — no other position swings a season quite like it.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed are the writer’s own.
With the 2026-27 season about a month away, Hockey Beast is ranking the ten best goalies in the league right now, and the debate at the very top is as close as it’s been in years. That makes ranking the rest of this list genuinely difficult too, because the gap between the best in the league and a legitimate No. 1 starter is often razor-thin. But some names show up near the top of these lists every single year. Here’s how the crease shakes out heading into the new season.
Top 10 goalies in the NHL
10: Jakub Dobes, Montreal Canadiens
Dobes didn’t just have a good rookie year — he started all 19 playoff games and stole a Game 7 with 28 saves to knock Tampa Bay out in the first round. Montreal built its whole playoff run around a goalie who wasn’t in the league a year earlier.
9: Jesper Wallstedt, Minnesota Wild
Ten games into last season, Wallstedt led the NHL in wins, goals-against average, and save percentage all at once — an 8-0-2 start with a 1.74 GAA and a .944 save percentage. He piled up four shutouts in a six-start stretch, something no rookie goalie had done since 1938. Minnesota spent years waiting for this. It’s here now.
8: Dan Vladar, Philadelphia Flyers
A career backup nobody outside Philly had strong opinions on turned into a 29-win starter who got the Flyers back in the playoffs for the first time since 2020. The Flyers didn’t wait to find out if it was real — they handed him $27.5 million this summer.
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7: Jake Oettinger, Dallas Stars
Oettinger carried Dallas to three straight Western Conference Finals from 2023 through 2025, a run that ended abruptly this spring when the Wild knocked the Stars out in the first round. It stung, and Oettinger admitted afterward he hadn’t accomplished any of his goals for the year — but a rough playoff exit doesn’t erase one of the more reliable regular-season track records at the position over the last five years.
6: Jeremy Swayman, Boston Bruins
After his worst NHL season in 2024-25, Swayman answered with a career-high in wins and a Vezina finalist nod. Boston missed the playoffs the year before — they clinched a wild card largely because their goalie refused to have a repeat.
5: Logan Thompson, Washington Capitals
Thompson led the entire NHL in goals saved above expected last season. Five full seasons, five times with a save percentage above .908 — the only thing missing from his résumé is a Washington team that’s actually good enough to get him out of the first round.
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4: Ilya Sorokin, New York Islanders
Sorokin led the league in shutouts, led the league in high-danger saves, and did it all behind an Islanders defense that made his job harder than it needed to be. A Vezina finalist in four of the last five years, and still somehow underrated.
3: Connor Hellebuyck, Winnipeg Jets
Three Vezinas, a Hart Trophy, and 345 wins since 2015 — only one goalie in the league has more. But this ranking comes with an asterisk: Hellebuyck came off a career-worst .895 save percentage last season, and on August 27 he confirmed he’s asked the Jets to trade him. He’s still under contract through 2030-31, and Winnipeg says there’s “no update at this time” — but this might be the last time he shows up on this list wearing a Jets sweater.
2: Igor Shesterkin, New York Rangers
The Rangers handed Shesterkin the richest goalie contract in NHL history, and then gave him a team that couldn’t score — 23rd in the league — to back it up. He still posted a .912 save percentage and kept New York competitive. Over the last five years, nobody in the NHL has stopped pucks at a higher rate.
1: Andrei Vasilevskiy, Tampa Bay Lightning
Vasilevskiy just won his second Vezina, led the league in wins again, and helped Tampa Bay make the playoffs for a ninth straight season. Two Stanley Cups, a Conn Smythe, and more wins than anyone else in hockey since 2015-16. There’s no real argument for anyone else at the top right now.
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