The top 10 Vezina Trophy candidates for 2026-27
I’ll keep repeating the refrain until the day it’s no longer true: NHL goaltender is the ficklest position in professional sports. Look at who closed out the Stanley Cup Final for the Carolina Hurricanes last season. Brandon Bussi was an October waiver claim, then the fastest goalie in NHL history to win 20 games, then benched for Frederik Andersen to open the playoffs, then took back the crease to win Carolina’s final three games against Vegas to clinch the Canes’ second championship.
With just 32 No. 1 jobs available – even that number is debatable when some teams employ true platoons – it’s no wonder relative unknowns emerge as stars every year. There are surely 100 great goalies in the world, after all. With the position’s unpredictability comes a relative unpredictability in Vezina Trophy winners year to year – with two exceptions.
Connor Hellebuyck and Andrei Vasilevskiy, two future Hall of Famers, have captured five of the past eight Vezinas. They are the position’s only constants over the past decade, top two in wins and games started. So while it’s difficult to forecast which other puckstoppers will challenge them for the Vezina each season, the two of them remain strong bets to contend, even if they don’t always do so in the same season.
Here are my top 10 Vezina candidates for 2026-27, with bet365 Sportsbook odds included.
10. Jet Greaves, Columbus Blue Jackets (+3000)
Greaves is one of the NHL’s smallest goaltenders, generously listed at six-foot and 188 pounds, but few are quicker and more athletic. Over the past couple seasons, he’s ascended from AHL standout to viable NHLer and, now, a rising star who just earned himself a three-year, $15-million contract. Among 28 goalies who appeared in at least half their teams’ games last season, he sat eighth in goals saved above expected per 60 minutes. The Blue Jackets haven’t made the playoffs since 2019-20, but they’ve flirted with a spot the past couple seasons, and another stellar showing from Greaves could get them over the hump – and earn him some serious Vezina consideration.
9. Dan Vladar, Philadelphia Flyers (+4000)
Signing longtime Flames backup Vladar and giving him his first real shot as a starter proved a genius move from Flyers GM Danny Briere. Vladar was an absolute stalwart in Philly’s crease, posting a .906 save percentage, winning 29 games and finishing sixth in the Vezina vote. He was even better in the playoffs, posting an NHL-best .922 SV%. Coach Rick Tocchet’s teams play responsible defensive hockey that often yields exceptional goalie performances; Darcy Kuemper had two top-seven Vezina finishes under Tocchet in Arizona, as did Thatcher Demko in Vancouver. New acquisition Joseph Woll has the talent to push Vladar for starts in a way Samuel Ersson could not, but the No. 1 gig – and a fringe shot at the Vezina – is Vladar’s as long as he keeps excelling.
8. Jakub Dobes, Montreal Canadiens (+2800)
How many times in NHL history have we seen a pedigreed goalie, heralded as a future god between the pipes, forced to wait for his shot at stardom because the supposed stopgap is playing too well to surrender the job? Dobes is to Jacob Fowler what Jaroslav Halak was to Carey Price for a period in Montreal. A gamer who plays with real emotion and competitiveness, Dobes found his mental equilibrium partway through last season and played like a star after the Olympic break, going 11-5 with a .916 SV%. He was even better when we factor in that the Habs were not a great play-driving team; he sat seventh in goals saved above expected per 60 among goalies who played at least half their teams’ games. Montreal expects to contend for the Atlantic Division crown and Stanley Cup this season; Vezina voters, a.k.a. the league’s GMs, often favor netminders with fat win totals when casting ballots, and Dobes should accrue quite a few Ws as long as he holds Fowler off.
7. Jesper Wallstedt, Minnesota Wild (+1800)
Wallstedt was on the shortlist of decade’s highest-regarded goaltending prospects and, after he struggled to get his career off the ground, languishing on bad AHL Iowa teams, his moment finally arrived last season after Marc-Andre Fleury’s retirement vacated the No. 2 job behind Filip Gustavsson. Wallstedt flourished, posting the NHL’s second-best save percentage at .915. The only reason he got no Vezina votes was sample size; he started just 33 games. But we can expect him to push for 45-50 starts this season. Not only did he get the nod over Gustavsson to open the 2025-26 playoffs and start all but one of the Wild’s games, but Gustavsson is recovering from offseason hip surgery and isn’t a lock to be ready for the start of the regular season, leaving Wallstedt as Minnesota’s undisputed No. 1 to open 2026-27. Wallstedt has the size, talent and technical proficiency to become a workhorse starter for years to come, and it will happen beginning this season. He’s a real threat to join the elite tier of perennial Vezina hopefuls.
6. Jake Oettinger, Dallas Stars (+2500)
Has Oettinger’s career been a mild disappointment to date? I mean that as a compliment. He’s already a star. Only Vasilevskiy and Hellebuyck have won more games across the past five seasons, and only Sergei Bobrovsky has started or won more playoff games in the past half decade. But most of us expected Oettinger to be lining his trophy case by now. He’s that good. Instead, he’s trending the wrong way; his .899 SV% last season was the lowest of his career. That said, save percentages in general have declined the past few years, and Oettinger was actually still an above-average netminder in 2025-26, saving 0.107 goals above expected per 60. I say that not to confuse any laypeople with fancy stats but only to remind you the Stars weren’t an elite defensive team last season and that Oettinger was better than he got credit for. He’s still a top-end talent in his prime on a Stanley Cup contender. The environment remains fertile for him to have that banner season we’ve been awaiting.
5. Jeremy Swayman, Boston Bruins (+1200)
Swayman didn’t just have a strong claim to the Vezina last year; his Hart Trophy case might have been even stronger. He bailed out a defensively terrible Bruins team to save 28.8 goals above expected last season, second most in the NHL; that’s almost 30 goals that should’ve been on Boston’s ledger that Swayman took off the board. David Pastrnak had a 100-point season, but Swayman was the primary reason Boston made the playoffs. The terrible start to his 2024-25 season, the result of a late start due to contract negotiations, is in the rearview mirror now. Swayman has been an elite goalie in all but one season, and he’s fresh off his first finalist finish in the Vezina vote. So why do I only rank him fifth? Even a great goalie can only excel so long in a defensively leaky system before all the shots add up. We saw Swayman crack in the postseason, visibly frustrated with his team’s inability to protect their net. It will be tough to sustain his performance if he doesn’t get more help going forward.
4. Connor Hellebuyck, Winnipeg Jets (+500)
Hellebuyck won his third Vezina and second in a row, plus the Hart, the season before last, becoming the third goalie to nab MVP honors this century after Jose Theodore and Carey Price. But while Hellebuyck gave a legendary performance to help Team USA win gold at the 2026 Olympics, he couldn’t stop Winnipeg tumbling from a Presidents’ Trophy in 2024-25 to out of the playoffs in 2025-26. Hellebuyck only graded out slightly above average in goals saved above expected per 60 last season. He was roughly as good as Philipp Grubauer on a minute-to-minute basis. Nevertheless, we can’t keep a three-time Vezina winner too low on this list, as he’s only a year removed from best-in-the-world status and, on a Jets team that hasn’t improved much if at all this offseason, any turnaround would be fuelled by a resurgent Hellebuyck campaign. We also might see Hellebuyck flourish on a new team if traded; if he winds up with an elite contender such as the Vegas Golden Knights, Buffalo Sabres or Carolina Hurricanes, for instance, he’s back to Vezina frontrunner status immediately.
3. Ilya Sorokin, New York Islanders (+800)
With his Islanders spending the past half decade as a fringe playoff team and/or out of the race, Sorokin’s game has become overlooked. Did you know that he has five more shutouts than any other goalie over the past five years? He has also yet to post a SV% lower than .906 in his career and has finished no lower than eighth in the Vezina vote for five consecutive seasons. Back to the aforementioned Vezina win bias; for Sorokin to break through and bag his first, he’ll need to grow that win total into at least the mid-30s. He’s never won more than 31 games in a campaign. But if dazzling teenage talent Matthew Schaefer can will the Isles into the postseason, Sorokin just might grab the hardware after a runner-up finish last season.
2. Andrei Vasilevskiy, Tampa Bay Lightning (+750)
Vasilevskiy’s resume will rank among the true best of all-time by the time his career ends. He’s still just 32, not exactly ancient by goalie standards, and he already has two Stanley Cups, a Conn Smythe Trophy, two Vezinas and multiple first-team All-Star nods to his name. Having led the NHL in victories six times in the past nine seasons playing for a perennial contender in the Lightning, ‘Vasy’ needs just 30 more wins to reach 400, and he’ll easily be the fastest puck-stopper to hit the mark. He’s only had one subpar season in 10 as a bona fide starter, and that came when he was recovering from back surgery. A healthy ‘Vasy’ is always a Vezina threat. He has a chance to make it two straight after winning his second last season.
1. Logan Thompson, Washington Capitals (+700)
Over the past five seasons combined, Thompson has been one of the NHL’s best all-around goalies – and he was arguably the best last season. No starting goaltender saved more goals above expected per 60. Thompson was the top goalie in the NHL relative to the difficulty of his workload. After sharing the net with Charlie Lindgren on close to a 50-50 split the season before last, Thompson pulled away last season to start 58 games. Thompson has already proven to be an elite netminder even with a mediocre team in front of him, and now the Capitals look like the NHL’s most improved franchise year over year. On top of his elite rate stats, Thompson could push for 40-plus victories this season. He checks every box as the ideal Vezina candidate for 2026-27.
Other 2026-27 Vezina Trophy candidates to consider
Scott Wedgewood (Col)
Igor Shesterkin (NYR)
Karel Vejmelka (Uta)
Lukas Dostal (Ana)
Jacob Markstrom (Fla)
Spencer Knight (Chi)
Juuse Saros (Nsh)
Jake Allen (NJ)
Sergei Bobrovsky (Tor)
Linus Ullmark (Ott)
Joel Hofer (Stl)
Brandon Bussi (Car)
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