Here are the top 62 goalies to own in your salary cap league – November 26^th, 2021 edition.

Jack Campbell has been in a league of his own this year. It was something that fantasy managers may have been aware of in cap leagues at the moment, but to see it so drastically outlined really hits it home. He is the only goalie listed as a tier-one option at the moment (usually this list has two or three), and his rating is head and shoulders, knees and toes above the rest of the competition. This will only last until the end of the season though, as a large extension is looming for him. It will also be interesting to see how a healthy Petr Mrazek affects things in the Maple Leafs' crease. For now though, it's all Campbell.

We also saw big rises from Frederik Andersen, Scott Wedgewood, and James Reimer, who may be the surprise goalie of the season right now. Wedgewood is in this picture due to the volume, as we really can't expect him to keep up even a 2.5 GAA in Arizona. Andersen however may be able to keep his numbers where they are all season long, and looks to be a lot more comfortable when he's not wearing blue.

On the flip side, both Alex Nedeljkovic and Semyon Varlamov dropped out of the top-10, as they aren't seeing the volume that was expected to this point – though Varlamov can't fully be blamed as he has missed most of the season thus far due to injuries. Neither has been putting up spectacular numbers in the games they have played either, and as a result they have mostly just been anchors on your cap league teams thus far. With the Islanders finally playing at home again, a healthy Varlamov should rebound nicely with some excellent stats during his starts every second game. Meanwhile, Nedeljkovic just looks to be stuck splitting with Tomas Greiss, who has actually been the better goalie thus far. Detroit has been winning a few more games than expected, but their defense isn't quite at the level of the Islanders, and as a result the goalie rates will be less valuable to fantasy owners over the coming months.

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: