As we stare down a potentially active goalie market in the NHL, we're left with the smoke but not much fire from the trade deadline, where we did see a few goalies change teams, but no one likely to make a huge difference fantasy-wise at this point. Logan Thompson reigns as the top value goalie in cap leagues, while Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen climbs the ladder as Buffalo's main starter of late – he's due a raise this summer though, so that won't last long. Connor Ingram currently still sits atop tier three, but his play has slipped of late, as we likely should have expected from someone with a career-high of 27 NHL games. His crease-mate Karel Vejmelka could be one of those goalies on the move this summer as he does have the higher cap hit, and we know those don't stick around in Arizona for long. Perhaps a worthwhile target for those that miss out on Juuse Saros, Jacob Markstrom, and the other big fish.

Standard pre-rankings note:

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 entry-level deals. 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 value 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.

Comments help with optimizing the values, because they're not perfect and they never will be.

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.

*The January rankings were a top-63 as Daccord hadn't updated properly in the charts and was initially missed.