The cold streak for Carter Hart is extending longer than many people expected – especially on my end. Rookie goalies like Alex Nedeljkovic, Kevin Lankinen, and Kaapo Kahkonen are all making their mark, further reinforcing two points that I believe in. First, goaltending is not somewhere to spend a lot of money, and second, younger goalies should be given some rope when possible in order to show that they can step in sooner rather than later.

One goalie that hasn't gotten enough love is Cal Petersen. He has pushed Jonathan Quick aside in the Kings' net, leaving Quick completely outside of the top-62 list here. Petersen is about the sign his third pro contract this summer, and looks primed to take a below-market level deal despite being ready to take on the lion's share of starts moving forward. The Kings also have one of the best prospect systems in the NHL, and aren't far off from really rocketing up the standings. In two or three years Petersen could be providing similar value to what Philipp Grubauer is giving managers this season. As an above-average goalie playing on a below-market deal for one of the stronger teams in the league, Petersen could be a league winner sooner rather than later, and it's worth inquiring on him now before the secret gets out.

Standard pre-rankings note:

This isn't meant to be a be-all and end-all rating system for you to use without thinking and just trade your players for anyone above them on the list that you can find, but used with some foresight for managing salaries, I'm hoping that the list can help you mine value in trades, and at the draft table.

Cap hit is used for the player cost, so if your league uses salary or AAV, please account for that, as it can greatly change the impact of rookies. The rankings are set up so as to provide the most value in the current season, while providing some value in future years, based on modeling for predicted salary increases and production growth.

The stats used for the goaltenders attempt to balance both ratio stats as well as volume. For those of you with variations towards either end of the spectrum, leaning more towards volume or rate stats, you will want to account for that change in value. Same thing goes for setting variations such as: number of teams, salary space, or roster positions. This list is made to be a baseline guide for player evaluation, and to promote discussion and understanding of how to optimize rosters in a cap league setting.

The goalie list comes not only with a rankings system, but with value tiers. The tiers (also computed by a formula of mine) represent a more general view on a goalie's value taking into account a few overarching factors. Cheap backups can have higher ratings but show up lower down the tier rankings. The high ranking is due to their low cap hits coupled with an established floor with some possible upside. The lower tier is a result of them having uncertain volume, and the lower likelihood of hitting their upside in any given year.In general, aim to have the highest rated players if you are looking to be most cap efficient, but use the tiers if you just want to focus on having the best goalies and you are comfortable paying a little more for that security.

If you note a mistake, or have any further questions about the ranking system, please let me know. You can find me on Twitter here @alexdmaclean.

📢 advertisement:

I'm not perfect, and the rankings won't be either. Comments help with optimizing the values.

We're sticking with the +/- 5.0 rating that Dobber uses on all of his rating schemes as the range for approximately equivalent value. The skater and goalie rankings are synched so that the value of a skater against a goalie can be compared.

All salary info is courtesy of capfriendly. Without further ado, the rankings:

Rank	Name	Age	Cap Hit	Yrs	Rating	Tier
1	Igor Shesterkin	25	$925,000	1	160.34	2
2	Carter Hart	22	$730,833	1	150.72	1
3	Kevin Lankinen	25	$800,000	2	149.86	3
4	Vitek Vanecek	25	$716,667	2	148.97	3
5	Calvin Petersen	26	$858,333	2	144.33	4
6	Kaapo Kahkonen	24	$725,000	2	142.36	4
7	Philipp Grubauer	29	$3,333,333	1	140.34	2
8	Thatcher Demko	25	$1,050,000	1	131.61	4
9	Casey DeSmith	29	$1,250,000	2	129.28	3
10	Jake Oettinger	22	$925,000	2	129.06	3
11	Ilya Samsonov	24	$925,000	1	124.27	2
12	Andrei Vasilevskiy	26	$9,500,000	8	116.34	1
13	Juuse Saros	25	$1,500,000	1	111.46	3
14	Tristan Jarry	25	$3,500,000	3	108.87	1
15	Connor Hellebuyck	27	$6,166,666	4	106.10	1
16	Joonas Korpisalo	26	$2,800,000	2	104.06	3
17	Semyon Varlamov	32	$5,000,000	3	101.86	2
18	Chris Driedger	26	$850,000	1	100.47	2
19	Jordan Binnington	27	$4,400,000	1	100.24	1
20	Mackenzie Blackwood	24	$2,800,000	3	98.63	3
21	Alex Nedeljkovic	25	$737,500	1	98.55	4
22	Darcy Kuemper	30	$4,500,000	2	96.91	3
23	Ilya Sorokin	25	$2,000,000	1	95.53	2
24	Jack Campbell	29	$1,650,000	2	93.06	4
25	Alex Stalock	33	$785,000	2	92.76	4
26	Jaroslav Halak	35	$2,250,000	1	85.53	3
27	Jacob Markstrom	31	$6,000,000	6	83.83	3
28	Frederik Andersen	31	$5,000,000	1	83.24	2
29	Cam Talbot	33	$3,666,666	3	79.16	5
30	Ville Husso	26	$750,000	2	78.94	3
31	Jonathan Bernier	32	$3,000,000	1	77.44	3
32	James Reimer	33	$3,400,000	1	75.21	4
33	Tuukka Rask	34	$7,000,000	1	74.37	3
34	Pavel Francouz	30	$2,000,000	2	73.90	3
35	John Gibson	27	$6,400,000	7	73.45	3
36	Elvis Merzlikins	26	$4,000,000	2	72.61	4
37	Anton Khudobin	34	$3,333,333	3	71.72	4
38	Petr Mrazek	29	$3,125,000	1	71.30	3
39	Malcolm Subban	27	$850,000	2	67.80	5
40	Ben Bishop	34	$4,916,666	3	67.54	5
41	Braden Holtby	31	$4,300,000	2	67.18	4
42	Robin Lehner	29	$5,000,000	5	67.04	4
43	Linus Ullmark	27	$2,600,000	1	62.00	5
44	Marc-Andre Fleury	36	$7,000,000	2	61.78	5
45	Devan Dubnyk	34	$4,333,333	1	59.55	6
46	Scott Wedgewood	28	$700,000	1	59.06	3
47	Mikko Koskinen	32	$4,500,000	2	57.26	5
48	Alexandar Georgiev	25	$2,425,000	2	56.68	5
49	Matt Murray	26	$6,250,000	4	55.81	4
50	Brian Elliott	35	$1,500,000	1	54.37	6
51	Sergei Bobrovsky	32	$10,000,000	6	53.16	4
52	David Rittich	28	$2,750,000	1	53.04	5
53	Carey Price	33	$10,500,000	6	52.79	3
54	Antti Raanta	31	$4,250,000	1	51.88	5
55	Jake Allen	30	$4,350,000	1	50.70	4
56	Marcus Hogberg	26	$700,000	1	49.26	5
57	Martin Jones	31	$5,750,000	4	47.83	5
58	Mike Smith	39	$2,000,000	2	47.50	6
59	Adin Hill	24	$800,000	1	45.74	5
60	Jonas Johansson	25	$700,000	1	45.37	5
61	Pekka Rinne	38	$5,000,000	1	44.70	6
62	Carter Hutton	35	$2,750,000	1	41.92	6

UPCOMING GAMES

Dec 27 - 19:12	DET	vs	TOR
Dec 27 - 19:12	BUF	vs	CHI
Dec 27 - 19:12	CBJ	vs	BOS
Dec 27 - 19:12	N.J	vs	CAR
Dec 27 - 20:12	DAL	vs	MIN
Dec 27 - 20:12	STL	vs	NSH
Dec 27 - 21:12	UTA	vs	COL
Dec 27 - 22:12	S.J	vs	VGK