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Top Three Goalies In The NHL’s Best Goaltending Division
Ryan Lambertfeatured
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The Atlantic Division is home to two 2025-26 Vezina finalists and two other Vezina winners. But who are the three best goalies in the Atlantic going into next season?
There has been a lot of goaltending turnover in the Atlantic Division over the summer, including Sergei Bobrovsky leaving the Florida Panthers for the Toronto Maple Leafs
With the Buffalo Sabres possibly still in the running to acquire Connor Hellebuyck, perhaps there’s more change to come
But this is the division that produced two of the three finalists for the Vezina Trophy as the league’s best netminder last season and is still home to two other past Vezina winners
So, in a lot of ways, this is the NHL’s top goaltending division. But who are the best current goalies in the Atlantic heading into the 2026-27 season?
How does the Florida Panthers’ goaltending look now?moreVideos
Here’s the top three, based on what we know right now
The reigning Vezina winner ran away with the vote this past spring
Vasilevskiy got 17 of the 32 possible first-place votes while the next-closest goalie – Ilya Sorokin – had just eight. Vasilevskiy was third in the league in save percentage (.912) among goalies with at least 30 games played and third in starts (58), but it’s very rare for a goalie who’s used that often to also post those kinds of numbers. Vasilevskiy and Washington’s Logan Thompson were the only goalies in the league with more than 55 starts and a save percentage above .902
And the thing is, we know this is repeatable
Since the pandemic-affected seasons, only two goalies have played more games than Vasilevskiy’s 296, and only four have a higher save percentage
The underlying numbers are almost always elite: apart from a down year in 2023-24, his goals saved above expected have been top-six in the league every single season since 2020-21, according to moneypuck.com. He’s been a Vezina finalist six times, with two wins
This is already a future first-ballot Hall of Famer who does not appear to be slowing down at all
And the Lightning netminder is still only 32
thehockeynews.comLightning’s Vasilevskiy Surprised By Police With Second-Career Vezina TrophyTampa Bay Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy was surprised with his second-career Vezina Trophy in anxious fashion. Tampa Police surprised him with the award in his car, telling Vasilevskiy he had a suspicious object in his vehicle.
If you’re looking for a reason the Bruins vastly overperformed expectations, the puck stops here
Swayman just had his second great season in three years, and over the last five, there are few goalies in the league who have been better, by just about any metric you want to look at
It’s been that way for some time: as a rookie, he was fifth in Calder voting with a .914 save percentage. He followed that up without any awards consideration in 2022-23 because teammate Linus Ullmark deservedly won the Vezina, and they split the Jennings trophy
Swayman got his first Vezina consideration in 2023-24, when he finished seventh and had a better save percentage than all but two of the goalies ahead of him. And last season, he was third in Vezina voting, not so far behind Sorokin, who’s a perennial contender for that award
There is a downside here, however
While everyone is probably somewhat willing to write off Swayman’s putrid 2024-25 campaign as a product of a delayed start to training camp (he was in a contract dispute), it must be said that the team in front of him doesn’t seem to be getting all that much better
They needed an excellent season in goal to make the playoffs, and to Swayman’s credit, he provided it. Can he do it again? Probably, but there’s a lot more doubt than there is with Vasilevskiy
There’s a lot of competition for this third spot
Ullmark, the aforementioned 2022-23 Vezina winner, hasn’t quite lived up to the hype since arriving in Ottawa, but the Senators have a solid structure around him. They were third in all-situations expected-goals percentage and first in expected goals against
The Sens might take a step back if their offense cools down, but Ullmark is certainly in a position to keep them in most games
Yes, he’s coming off a down season and will turn 33 this week, but there’s a recipe here, and the team should remain successful
More specifically, it’s one that just leaves you fairly confident he’s going to be better than what the rest of the division rolls out, almost by default
Toronto just took on Florida’s goaltending problem, two-time Vezina winner and Cup winner Bobrovsky, who will soon be 38 and is coming off the worst season of his career. He could bounce back, especially behind a Toronto team that should have better defensive structure, but you shouldn’t bet on too many elite seasons from guys his age
Florida, meanwhile, took the New Jersey Devils’ goaltending problem. Jacob Markstrom is 36, and over the last four seasons behind not-very-good teams, he’s a sub-.900 goalie. Florida is a team that, when healthy, puts its goalies in a position to succeed, but it’s moving on from an old goalie it could probably trust in its system to one that’s way less predictable
Beyond that, where would you slot in Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen? He only played 34 regular-season games last year and was quite good, but he then lost his starting job in the playoffs. The situation is such that the Sabres have been actively looking for a replacement this summer, and they’re not doing so internally. If they get Hellebuyck, it’s a different conversation; for now, you can’t put Buffalo’s No. 1 guy in the top three
And if you think I’m forgetting Detroit, well, no I’m not. And you know that
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