Poll: Who Are The Best Goaltenders In The NHL?

Earlier this month the NHL Network started their annual exercise rating the top players in the NHL by position, and gave us Connor McDavid, Nikita Kucherov and Brent Burns as the best players in the world at their respective spots. The rest of the lists created such debate that we polled the members of the PHR community and came up with our own rankings, which differed quite a bit. In fact, our readers decided that there should be a different top name on each list, putting Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and Victor Hedman in the top spots.

Most recently we asked our readers to select the best 20 defensemen in the NHL. Our PHR community-voted Top 20 Defensemen list currently looks like this:

1. Victor Hedman (760 votes)
2. Brent Burns (715 votes)
3. Erik Karlsson (643 votes)
4. Drew Doughty (565 votes)
5. Mark Giordano (481 votes)
6. Roman Josi (446 votes)
7. Seth Jones (427 votes)
8. Alex Pietrangelo (406 votes)
9. P.K. Subban (332 votes)
10. Morgan Rielly (330 votes)
11. Oliver Ekman-Larsson (294 votes)
12. John Carlson (257 votes)
13. Shea Weber (248 votes)
14. Charlie McAvoy (206 votes)
15. Kris Letang (196 votes)
16. Dustin Byfuglien (174 votes)
17. Colton Parayko (172 votes)
18. John Klingberg (151 votes)
19. Jacob Trouba (140 votes)
20. Aaron Ekblad (137 votes)

Now, the network has released their ranking of the best goaltenders in the NHL and the debate is red hot once again. Andrei Vasilevskiy probably doesn’t turn many heads after his first Vezina Trophy at the age of 24 but things quickly become less clear following the Tampa Bay Lightning netminder. The network brings in Sergei Bobrovsky, Ben Bishop and Carey Price in the next three spots, three goaltenders who have certainly had their ups and downs over the last several seasons. The $70MM man in Bobrovsky was recently rewarded for his play, but 2018-19 actually marked the lowest save percentage he’s ever had in a healthy season at .913. Bishop meanwhile put up an incredible .934 to lead the league last season but had been completely out of Vezina conversation the previous two.

Price always brings with him quite a bit of debate, and this year is no different. There is obvious all-world talent in the Montreal Canadiens goaltender but there have been real inconsistency issues over the last two seasons as he battled injury. A nice bounce back to a .918 save percentage and 35 wins put him back in the conversation for the best goaltender in the world, but at least on this list he’s now been passed by three others.

Perhaps most notable on the list is the inclusion of Stanley Cup winner Jordan Binnington, who had played just a single NHL game before his magical run in 2018-19. Binnington helped turn around the entire season for the St. Louis Blues and then took them all the way to their first championship in franchise history. There’s no doubt that Binnington played at a level that put him among the best in the world last season, but with such a short resume it’s hard to know if that success can continue.

Just like our other polls, we want the PHR community to let us know who the best goaltenders in the world are. Like the last poll, we’ll ask you to select just 10 names.  Make sure to leave a comment below on who you think deserves to be recognized, or your thoughts on how the other three polls ended. We’ve included many names that could be considered, but if you think we’ve missed someone important (which we undoubtedly have) make sure to leave his name down below.

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