There are a few positions in team sports wherein one player can take over an entire game, and there is no better example of that than goaltenders in hockey. Elite goalies can make bad teams competitive, and they can make average teams look like contenders.
The catch is that elite goaltending, like elite pitching or quarterbacking, is very hard to find. There are a limited number of NHL netminders who are good enough to completely change the fortunes of their respective teams over the course of an 82-game season.
Ilya Sorokin has already shown that he can elevate a somewhat pedestrian New York Islanders roster, and Juuse Saros has done the same for the Nashville Predators. Other goalies, like Andrei Vasilevskiy, can make great teams look borderline unbeatable.
Here are the top 10 NHL goaltenders heading into the 2023-24 season.
All goals saved above average and high-danger save percentage numbers courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.
There were a few goaltenders in contention for this final spot, including Ilya Samsonov and Alexandar Georgiev, but Kuemper got the nod because of his larger body of work. Kuemper had a bit of a down year in 2022-23, but it was better than it looked on the surface.
In his first season with the Washington Capitals, Kuemper posted a GAA of 2.87 and a save percentage of .908. That doesn’t necessarily scream
