Welcome to what is likely the last time in a run of over two years that Logan Thompson will be the top value goalie in cap leagues. With his extension kicking in this summer, the torch will likely be passed to Pyotr Kochetkov who has two years remaining on his cheap deal, and looks primed to take over as the everyday starter with Frederik Andersen set to become a free agent. In fact, six of the top-10 goalies on this latest ranking list are due for raises in the summer (or already signed), so it's not just at the number-one spot, but on the list as a whole where there will be quite a changing of the guard.

The other interesting thing to note when looking at the top of this list, is that until you get to Darcy Kuemper at #35, Sergei Bobrovsky is the only starter older than 31, which tells me that over the next few years, there may not be a huge amount of turnover in the area of volume starters. The prime age for a goalie can extend well into their mid-30s, so there are at least a dozen quality starters right now that have at least four years of runway, in addition to another dozen young goalies that have closer to eight or 10 years. All that to say, now might not be a bad time to lock in your goaltending for the future, especially if they're on a long-term contract under the rising cap environment.

But before we get to the rankings – we want to give you a free Interactive Playoff Draft List!

How?

1. Follow Goalie Post on X (here)
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3. Reply to this post with a screenshot of the app in your library, or of the starting goalie page in your app. You do not need to ‘like’ this post. REPLY with the screenshot of the app.
4. That’s it! We’ll DM you a coupon code to get the Draft List for free (just give us a couple of days). Odds of winning are 100%!

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.