2026 NHL Goalie Musical Chairs: Western Conference
Goaltending is everything. Goaltending is nothing.
The Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes had a team save percentage of .914 in the 2025-26 postseason. They received excellent puck-stopping most of the way to their second championship. They also won their final three games of the Final against the Vegas Golden Knights led by Brandon Bussi, an undrafted 27-year-old who had never played in the NHL before this season, let alone started or won a playoff game.
Trying to find good NHL goaltending is like trying to corral a handful of sand. You need reliability in net to win, but you’re just as likely to find it with random luck as your are by entrusting a stud. Connor Hellebuyck gave a performance for the ages to help Team USA win 2026 Olympic gold this winter, and Andrei Vasilevskiy captured his second career Vezina Trophy for the Tampa Bay Lightning, but the goalies who started games from Round 2 of the playoffs onward this season were Alex Lyon, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Jakub Dobes, Bussi, Frederik Andersen, Dan Vladar, Carter Hart, Scott Wedgewood, Mackenzie Blackwood, Lukas Dostal, Filip Gustavsson and Jesper Wallstedt.
Should the motivation be to promote goalies from within knowing luck could turn your way, or keep searching in hopes of unearthing the next Bussi or Lyon or Wedgewood? No one truly knows the correct strategy for managing pro sports’ ficklest position, which is why we see plenty of turnover every offseason.
As NHL free agency’s peak period of activity slows down, which puck-stoppers have found new homes?
After we started with the Eastern Conference, Part 2 of Goalie Musical Chairs looks at the Western Conference.
Whereas the East has seen a ton of turnover already, the West largely feels like unfinished business. Will the Winnipeg Jets trade Hellebuyck? Will the Golden Knights dump Adin Hill’s cap hit?
(Disclaimer: teams that added a third goalie without disturbing their top two land in the Status Quo tier.)
STATUS QUO
Calgary Flames (Dustin Wolf, Devin Cooley)
Chicago Blackhawks (Spencer Knight, Arvid Soderblom)
Colorado Avalanche (Scott Wedgewood, Mackenzie Blackwood)
Dallas Stars (Jake Oettinger, Casey DeSmith)
Los Angeles Kings (Anton Forsberg, Darcy Kuemper)
Minnesota Wild (Jesper Wallstedt, Filip Gustavsson, Calvin Pickard)
Nashville Predators (Juuse Saros, Justus Annunen)
San Jose Sharks (Yaroslav Askarov, Alex Nedeljkovic, Eric Comrie)
Seattle Kraken (Joey Daccord, Philipp Grubauer)
St. Louis Blues (Jordan Binnington, Joel Hofer)
Vancouver Canucks (Thatcher Demko, Kevin Lankinen)
Vegas Golden Knights (Carter Hart, Adin Hill)
Anaheim Ducks (stock unchanged)
Lukas Dostal
Ville Husso
Laurent Brossoit (1 x $1.1M)
(Out: Petr Mrazek)
Brossoit went 23 months between NHL games as he worked his way back from serious knee and hip injuries. But he was quite an effective backup goaltender the last time he was an NHL regular, one the best in the league on a per-60 basis. If he can recapture even 80 percent of that form, he could leapfrog Husso as Anaheim’s No. 2. If not, Brossoit will function as organizational depth.
Edmonton Oilers (stock up)
Frederik Andersen (1 x $1M)
Tristan Jarry
Devon Levi (Trade with BUF)
(Out: Connor Ingram)
Finally, the Oilers rock the boat with some major changes in net. Making a cross-continent move on a team-friendly deal, Andersen is clearly coming in to be the Oilers’ starter. He was as good as any player in the Stanley Cup playoffs across the first three rounds this spring before a knee injury knocked him out of the Final. Not only have the Oilers upgraded their 1A position over the volatile Jarry in the short term, but they’ve planted a longer-term seed by acquiring Levi. He’s undersized but isn’t far removed from being one of the NHL’s top goaltending prospects. His star faded the past couple seasons as he toiled with the AHLs Rochester Americans, but the 24-year-old’s star-caliber ceiling remains.
Utah Mammoth (stock up)
Karel Vejmelka
Sebastian Cossa (Trade with DET)
(Out: Vitek Vanecek)
The Mammoth continue to make prudent moves. Vejmelka is their high-floor workhorse, third among all NHL netminders in starts over the past two seasons. Cossa comes in and immediately gives Utah some ceiling. He struggled with the Grand Rapids Griffins in the second half of the AHL season and lost his job to Michal Postava, but Cossa looked like a rising star as recently as December. It’s not like the talent evaporated for the 2021 NHL Draft’s 15th-overall pick. Look at how low Jesper Wallstedt’s stock had fallen a year ago in Minnesota. Cossa has major potential for a similar post-hype breakout with a new franchise willing to give him a real chance in the NHL.
Winnipeg Jets (stock unchanged)
Connor Hellebuyck
Stuart Skinner (2 x $3.75M)
(Out: Eric Comrie)
Skinner’s surface stats in Pittsburgh didn’t look great, but he was actually above average in goals saved above expected, a stat that factors in the difficulty of his workload. His AAV and term straddle the line between “higher-end backup for Hellebuyck” and “stopgap starter if we trade Hellebuyck.” Place your bets.
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