Cap League Goalie Rankings – March 2022
Alexander MacLean
2022-03-26
Here are the top 62 goalies to own in your salary cap league – March 26th, 2022 edition.
What a difference two months makes. In the last rankings, Tuukka Rask was making his triumphant return, Jeremy Swayman was moving to the minors, Marc-Andre Fleury was toiling away on the Blackhawks, and both Jack Campbell and Jordan Binnington were still looked upon as must-starts.
This time around, Swayman jumps to the top name on the list, Vitek Vanecek remains number two, and Husso rounds out the top three. There are ways to get ahead of the goalie market, and it's usually by finding one that doesn't waste all of your cap space. Five of the top-six ranked goalies though are up for new contracts though, so for next year we will have to find some new bargain options. A few names to keep your eyes on for that are Daniel Vladar, Stuart Skinner, Connor Ingram, Justus Annunen, and Anthony Stolarz.
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 (my preference is usually to lean towards the more cap efficient options because of how variable goalies can be).
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.
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, though the scale of the ratings has changed a little since the last update.
All salary info is courtesy of capfriendly. Without further ado, the rankings:
Rank | Name | Age | Cap Hit | Yrs | Rating | Tier | Prev Rnk |
1 | Jeremy Swayman | 23 | $925,000 | 2 | 333.66 | 2 | 39 |
2 | Vitek Vanecek | 26 | $716,667 | 1 | 321.50 | 2 | 2 |
3 | Ville Husso | 27 | $750,000 | 1 | 308.13 | 3 | 35 |
4 | Jack Campbell | 30 | $1,650,000 | 1 | 300.91 | 1 | 1 |
5 | Jake Oettinger | 23 | $925,000 | 1 | 278.56 | 3 | 12 |
6 | Calvin Petersen | 27 | $858,333 | 1 | 264.04 | 3 | 5 |
7 | Igor Shesterkin | 26 | $5,666,667 | 4 | 263.34 | 1 | 3 |
8 | Tristan Jarry | 26 | $3,500,000 | 2 | 257.88 | 2 | 4 |
9 | Frederik Andersen | 32 | $4,500,000 | 2 | 252.22 | 2 | 7 |
10 | Darcy Kuemper | 31 | $4,500,000 | 1 | 234.49 | 2 | 8 |
11 | Juuse Saros | 26 | $5,000,000 | 4 | 211.88 | 1 | 11 |
12 | Ilya Sorokin | 26 | $4,000,000 | 3 | 205.25 | 2 | 15 |
13 | Jacob Markstrom | 32 | $6,000,000 | 5 | 203.73 | 2 | 18 |
14 | Ilya Samsonov | 25 | $2,000,000 | 1 | 188.92 | 2 | 9 |
15 | Robin Lehner | 30 | $5,000,000 | 4 | 186.73 | 1 | 6 |
16 | Andrei Vasilevskiy | 27 | $9,500,000 | 7 | 180.98 | 2 | 10 |
17 | Anton Forsberg | 29 | $900,000 | 1 | 174.45 | 5 | NR |
18 | Thatcher Demko | 26 | $5,000,000 | 5 | 174.38 | 3 | 22 |
19 | James Reimer | 34 | $2,250,000 | 2 | 174.21 | 4 | 13 |
20 | Connor Hellebuyck | 28 | $6,166,666 | 3 | 161.44 | 2 | 16 |
21 | Alex Nedeljkovic | 26 | $3,000,000 | 2 | 158.53 | 2 | 14 |
22 | Kaapo Kahkonen | 25 | $725,000 | 1 | 156.06 | 4 | 17 |
23 | Cam Talbot | 34 | $3,666,666 | 2 | 155.39 | 5 | 25 |
24 | Pavel Francouz | 31 | $2,000,000 | 1 | 152.41 | 4 | 24 |
25 | Elvis Merzlikins | 27 | $4,000,000 | 1 | 149.16 | 2 | 30 |
26 | John Gibson | 28 | $6,400,000 | 6 | 137.26 | 3 | 20 |
27 | Sergei Bobrovsky | 33 | $10,000,000 | 5 | 131.90 | 2 | 31 |
28 | Linus Ullmark | 28 | $5,000,000 | 4 | 130.93 | 5 | 33 |
29 | Carter Hart | 23 | $3,979,000 | 3 | 130.48 | 4 | 27 |
30 | Scott Wedgewood | 29 | $825,000 | 1 | 123.72 | 5 | 36 |
31 | Karel Vejmelka | 38 | $842,500 | 1 | 121.08 | 4 | 23 |
32 | Eric Comrie | 26 | $750,000 | 1 | 120.42 | 4 | 44 |
33 | Adin Hill | 25 | $2,175,000 | 2 | 117.31 | 5 | 26 |
34 | Daniel Vladar | 24 | $750,000 | 2 | 113.79 | 4 | 41 |
35 | Anthony Stolarz | 28 | $950,000 | 2 | 107.99 | 5 | 42 |
36 | Casey DeSmith | 30 | $1,250,000 | 1 | 103.09 | 5 | 29 |
37 | Antti Raanta | 32 | $2,000,000 | 2 | 100.99 | 6 | 49 |
38 | Jake Allen | 31 | $2,875,000 | 2 | 100.14 | 3 | 21 |
39 | Jon Gillies | 28 | $750,000 | 1 | 96.81 | 4 | NR |
40 | Craig Anderson | 40 | $750,000 | 1 | 95.04 | 6 | 55 |
41 | Marc-Andre Fleury | 37 | $7,000,000 | 1 | 94.92 | 3 | 40 |
42 | Braden Holtby | 32 | $2,000,000 | 1 | 93.83 | 6 | 38 |
43 | Joonas Korpisalo | 27 | $2,800,000 | 1 | 90.29 | 5 | 37 |
44 | Spencer Knight | 20 | $925,000 | 2 | 90.12 | 5 | 58 |
45 | Mikko Koskinen | 33 | $4,500,000 | 1 | 89.65 | 6 | 51 |
46 | Philipp Grubauer | 30 | $5,900,000 | 6 | 89.22 | 2 | 45 |
47 | Alexandar Georgiev | 26 | $2,425,000 | 1 | 89.01 | 5 | 50 |
48 | Mackenzie Blackwood | 25 | $2,800,000 | 2 | 88.58 | 4 | 32 |
49 | Jordan Binnington | 28 | $6,000,000 | 6 | 87.59 | 3 | 28 |
50 | Jonathan Quick | 36 | $5,800,000 | 2 | 84.17 | 6 | 54 |
51 | Sam Montembeault | 25 | $750,000 | 1 | 83.39 | 5 | 60 |
52 | Kevin Lankinen | 26 | $800,000 | 1 | 76.03 | 6 | 34 |
53 | Petr Mrazek | 30 | $3,800,000 | 3 | 75.17 | 3 | NR |
54 | Martin Jones | 32 | $2,000,000 | 1 | 74.62 | 6 | 47 |
55 | Brian Elliott | 36 | $900,000 | 1 | 69.60 | 7 | 53 |
56 | Semyon Varlamov | 33 | $5,000,000 | 2 | 67.74 | 2 | 43 |
57 | Laurent Brossoit | 29 | $2,325,000 | 2 | 67.11 | 6 | 59 |
58 | Thomas Greiss | 36 | $3,600,000 | 1 | 66.95 | 6 | 48 |
59 | David Rittich | 29 | $1,250,000 | 1 | 66.84 | 6 | 52 |
60 | Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen | 23 | $778,333 | 1 | 62.23 | 5 | 56 |
61 | Jaroslav Halak | 36 | $1,500,000 | 1 | 56.72 | 6 | 46 |
62 | Stuart Skinner | 38 | $750,000 | 2 | 56.42 | 6 | NR |