NHL Network Top 10 Goalies 2026-27: Vasilevskiy First, Two Rookies At The Bottom
Two rookies. That is the part of the NHL Network top 10 goalies for 2026-27 that everyone will fight about. And the thing only went public Sunday, third installment of a nine-part rankings series. The list itself comes first here. Opinion after.
That is the correct order and most outlets get it backwards.
The list, ten to one
Jakub Dobes of the Montreal Canadiens sits tenth. Fifty-nine career regular season games to his name, and he is on a top 10 board. Sit with that number for a second. Fifty-nine.
Ninth is Jesper Wallstedt of the Minnesota Wild, off a first full season with a .916 save percentage and a November-December stretch when nobody in the league stopped the puck better.
Dan Vladar of the Philadelphia Flyers takes eighth. He drew nine points' worth of Vezina votes last season, and this ranking slots him above Jake Oettinger. Did you have Vladar over Oettinger on your own card? The network did. Oettinger, Dallas Stars, lands seventh, because the toolkit has never been the doubt around him. Three Vezina points last year.
Sixth: Logan Thompson of the Washington Capitals, fifth in the 2026 Vezina vote with 29 points.
Fifth: Jeremy Swayman of the Boston Bruins, third in that same vote with 46 points.
Boston has a complaint, and it is a legitimate one.
Fourth belongs to Ilya Sorokin of the New York Islanders.
Second in the Vezina voting. Fifty-one points. Fourth here.
That gap is a decision somebody made on purpose.
Third, Igor Shesterkin of the New York Rangers, who shows up on these lists regardless of how the previous season went. Second, Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets, arriving off a 2.86 goals-against average and a career-worst .895 save percentage across 57 games, per Yahoo's roundup of the debate. Second anyway.
First, Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Reigning Vezina winner. Done.
Why number one was easy
Calling the top pick lazy is the cheap read. The stats close that door, and then the bio locks it.
Vasilevskiy led the league with 39 wins, a 39-15-4 record across 58 starts, a 2.31 GAA and a .912 save percentage.
Opponents managed two goals or fewer in 35 of those 58 games. Between Dec. 20 and Feb. 25 he went 17-0-1 with a 1.90 GAA and a .925 save percentage.
Stretches like that end the argument.
He took the 2026 Vezina with 114 points. His second. The first came in 2019. He showed up to the vote a six-time finalist.
The rest of the file: 31 years old, drafted 19th overall by Tampa in 2012, two Cups in 2020 and 2021, a Conn Smythe in 2021, a .917 career save percentage across 598 games.
Preseason lists pay résumés, not projections.
His does not require a footnote.
Wallstedt and Dobes, receipts included
Wallstedt rewarded patience. Minnesota traded up to take him 20th overall in 2021, making him the first goalie born in Sweden ever selected in the first round. The first full season justified the wait: 18-9-6 in 35 games, a 2.61 GAA, a .916 save percentage, four shutouts. Among rookie goalies with at least 10 appearances, he finished first in save percentage, second in GAA and fourth in wins.
Then the run. From Nov. 7 to Dec. 18 he led all NHL goalies with a 1.48 GAA, a .954 save percentage and four shutouts, going 9-1-0 across 10 starts. He also backstopped the Wild to the second round for the first time since 2015. The "Wall of St. Paul" nickname was earned, not assigned.
Dobes is the one that made casual fans check the spelling. A fifth-round pick, 136th overall in 2020, out of Ostrava, 6-foot-4, 25 years old. His NHL debut was a 34-save, 4-0 shutout of the defending champion Florida Panthers on Dec. 28, 2024. He opened 2025-26 at 6-0-0 with a 1.97 GAA and a .930 save percentage, the 10th rookie goalie in league history to win his first six appearances of a season. October's Third Star followed. The full season finished at 29-10-4 with a 2.78 GAA and a .901 save percentage in 43 games.
The playoffs are why he is ranked at all. Nineteen games, nine wins, a 2.66 GAA, a .908 save percentage. Twenty-eight saves in a 2-1 Game 7. Tampa Bay went home.
That is the bottom of this list eliminating the top of it.
All of it on a two-year deal carrying a $965,000 cap hit. Nine hundred sixty-five thousand dollars. Not a rounding error, an actual figure somebody negotiated.
Two rookies is a bet
The back seats of a top 10 get traded among veterans every summer. First-year goalies, historically, get the "ones to watch" sidebar.
This time two of them were seated at the main table before establishing themselves at the level being ranked.
Picture a weather office issuing a full winter outlook off two cold mornings in October. Sometimes the call is right. Occasionally it is brilliant. And it is the sort of call people either quote back to you in April or quietly forget on purpose.
Rookie goalies are the most volatile commodity in hockey.
They steal a playoff round or land in a time-share by Christmas. Dobes already stole one, for what it is worth. The network is running this series nine parts deep in August, which is its own scheduling decision. And the goalie chapter is carrying the entire argument. Pushing Sorokin and Swayman down to fourth and fifth to make room says the listmakers would rather be early on the next wave than late on the last one. Consider the gap between the two ends of the board: 598 career games at the top, 59 at the bottom.
Preseason rankings are promises.
The games audit them.
NHL Network top 10 goalies: quick answers
Who holds No. 1 on the NHL Network top 10 goalies list for 2026-27? Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning, the reigning and two-time Vezina Trophy winner.
Which rookies made the cut?
Jesper Wallstedt of the Minnesota Wild at No. 9, and Jakub Dobes of the Montreal Canadiens at No. 10.
Where did Connor Hellebuyck land? No. 2 with the Winnipeg Jets, despite a career-worst .895 save percentage last season.
How many career NHL games has Jakub Dobes played?
Fifty-nine in the regular season, plus 19 more in the 2026 playoffs.
When was the list released?
Sunday, as the third part of the NHL Network's nine-part preseason rankings series.
The top of the board says the old king still rules.
The bottom says the line of succession arrived early. Drop your own 1-through-10 in the comments, since the argument is the entire point of ranking season.
Sources
- NHL.com: "Vasilevskiy, Shesterkin among NHL Network's top 10 goalies" (nhl.com) - NHL.com player pages: Andrei Vasilevskiy, Jakub Dobes, Jesper Wallstedt (nhl.com) - InGoal Magazine career stats: Vasilevskiy, Dobes, Wallstedt (ingoalmag.com) - Yahoo Sports: "NHL Network's Top 10 goalies list sparks heated debate" (sports.yahoo.com) - Wikipedia: Andrei Vasilevskiy, Jakub Dobes, Jesper Wallstedt