They say it’s the toughest job in sports.
100 mile-per-hour shots flying at your skull. Sprawling on all fours amidst a flurry of metal blades. Heavy gear weighing your body down. Audible boos when you slip up.
In an evolving role in an evolving sport with evolving skill, tactics, and technology, it’s a position where unpredictable play is increasingly common. Stanley Cup hero Sergei Bobrovsky, for example, lost his job to journeyman Alex Lyon as recently as the 2023 playoffs. Life in between the pipes comes at you fast. Few goaltenders keep the starter’s crease for long without hiccups, injuries, or wild swings in performance.
In our third and final instalment of the data-driven High Noon series — hockey’s version of the individual world golf or tennis rankings — we’re ranking the top 25 masked men at their craft.
If you missed Part 1 (forwards) or Part 2 (defensem*n) of the series, be sure to catch up first.
🕛 High Noon Refresh
Ahead of the rankings, here’s a summary on how High Noon handles goaltenders:
- A weighted three-year average is used:2023-24represents 50% of a player’s score;2022-23gets one-third (33%);2021-22gets one-sixth (17%). The split helps us from crowning one-hit wonders.
- Goaltenders need to play 111 games over three years (average of 37 per season) to qualify — the intent is to weed out backups thriving in sheltered roles and those that can’t secure regular action.
- By leveraging goalie point shares, the High Noon system is driven by boxscore stats (shots, saves, minutes) —notadvanced data like expected goals or performance in high danger situations.
- Playoffs aren’t factored in — post-season opportunities and opposition being too arbitrary to include.
- Missing time isn’t punished, so long as the games played threshold over the three-year window is met.
- High Noon doesn’t project results — it’s based solely on past performance, regardless of age.
Any goaltender with a strong save percentage will thrive in High Noon. But the methodology has a slight lean to reward goaltenders facing a high shot count. Should two goaltenders perform at the same level in save percentage, the more peppered one ranks higher, adding more value to his team.
The third and final instalment in our series:the 25 best goaltenders in the NHLtoday…
👑 The Top 25
How to Read these Rankings:Andrei Vasilevskiy’s score in the High Noon system is 9.7, making him the #8 goaltender in the NHL right now. In 2022, he was ranked #3; in 2023, he dropped to #6. The Change column is his decrease of -2 spots from #6 to #8 in the last year. Vasilevskiy’s peak — hisHigh Noon— is #1, which is the highest spot he’s ever been ranked (two times: 2019 and 2021).
1️⃣ Who’s #1?
Did the Boston Bruins trade the NHL’s best goaltender?
It may be unexpected to see Linus Ullmark hang onto the #1 spot a year after his breakout Vezina season. Ullmark’s standing speaks to a few things: how sensational he was in 2022-23; that his encore was rock solid if not spectacular; and that the methodology doesn’t punish goalies that split the crease as long as they reach the games requirement. With Connor Hellebuyck (11.9), Ilya Sorokin (11.7) and Igor Shesterkin (11.2) all within 0.9 of his leading score of 12.1, Ullmark will need to thrive in Ottawa to keep his crown.
If we look at last year in isolation, Ullmark would be #4, trailing Hellebuyck, Thatcher Demko, and polarizing hot dog Jordan Binnington. But that’s exactly why these rankings take a multi-year approach. NHL goaltending today is fickle and heavily influenced by a team’s play. Labeling Binnington the league’s #3 goaltender would be a stretch — he hadn’t provided league average goal prevention since 2020-21.
How rare is it for a goalie to hold the top spot in consecutive years? In the salary cap era, it’s happened three other times: Roberto Luongo (2006, 2007); Tim Thomas (2011, 2012); and Carey Price (2015-2017). Ullmark’s burst is in sensational company among some of the finest modern guardians of the gazebo.
When it comes to dominance, every goalie in NHL history unsurprisingly looks up at the guy they called ‘The Dominator.’ Dominik Hasek’s seven years at #1 are not just the all-time record but were achieved in succession (1995-2001). A mystifying run of excellence and consistency unheard of today.
📈 Trending Up
- Biggest Jumps:
- Jordan Binnington (+14, from #24 to #10)
- Carter Hart (+6, from #19 to #13)
- Jacob Markstrom (+4, from #25 to #21)
- Highest Debut:
- Jeremy Swayman (#7)
📉 Trending Down
- Biggest Drops:
- tie: Ilya Samsonov (-14, from #15 to #29)
- tie: Vitek Vanecek (-14, from #32 to #18)
- John Gibson (-12, from #24 to #12)
- Best in 2023 to No Longer Qualify:
- Frederik Andersen (#20)
💥 Feature Player
What a long and wild ride it’s been for Marc-Andre Fleury — the mischievous acrobat, forever young, turns 40 in November. A fossil by sports standards. Should he get into 25 games this season, Fleury will tie Martin Brodeur for most years qualified for High Noon with 19. Earlier this year, I’d written that Fleury could be the last 500-game winner, but he’s much more likely to be the last 1,000-game goalie.
But what you may notice in the graphic above is that Fleury was never at the very top of the NHL. Sure, he won a Vezina at 36 (in an abbreviated season) and, yes, he played in five Cup finals. His High Noon, however, is #7. Other goalies peaking at #7 include current Penguin Tristan Jarry, and Cup winners Antti Niemi and Bill Ranford. Solid careers, but not Hall of Fame locks like the affable Flower.
But Fleury’s brilliance is this… at age 21, he was the #16 goalie in the NHL. Impressive. By 23, he cracked the top 10. At age 30, he was still #14. At 33 and again at 36, his High Noon at #7 was reached. Even approaching middle age, he’s holding on at #22. An evolving, enduring survivor at the sport’s least sustainable position for over two decades. A fossil maybe, but a rare one that belongs in a museum one day.
🎯 Quick Hits
- Who’s the youngest goaltender on the list? Incredibly, it’s Jake Oettinger (#9). While he seems like a grizzled veteran after four years of regular duty, he’s still just 25 until December.
- With the NHL 4 Nations Faceoff in February, the lack of elite Canadians is notable — inconsistent stoppers Binnington (#10) and Stuart Skinner (#12) are the top qualified duo.
- U.S.A., meanwhile, boasts four of the top nine ranked goalies — #2, #6, #7, and #9.
- For a fourth year in a row, European goaltenders occupy four of the top five spots in High Noon.
- New #1 goalies Joey Daccord, Charlie Lindgren, and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen each had 10+ goals saved above average in 2023-24. All three could make a strong debut in the 2025 edition.
- Who else qualified for High Noon but didn’t make the top 25? Alex Nedeljkovic (#26); Ville Husso (#27); Jonathan Quick (#28); Samsonov (#29); Joonas Korpisalo (#30); Elvis Merzlikins (#31); Vanecek (#32); and Philipp Grubauer (#33).
Follow@AdjustedHockeyon X; Data fromHockey-Reference.com
Summer Content by Paul Pidutti
- High Noon 2024: Ranking the NHL’s 30 best defensem*n today
- High Noon 2024: Ranking the NHL’s 50 best forwards today
- Matthews, McDavid, Makar and the fast track to hockey immortality
- Who’s the best candidate to break each franchise’s single-season (era-adjusted) points record?
- Most long-term UFA signings turn out even worse than you think
- McDavid vs. Crosby: Which generational talent had the better career by 27?
