A couple of my top 10 columns over the past few weeks have focused on surprising forwards and defensemen of 2022-23.

With scoring up to 3.18 goals per game per team (the highest since 1993-94), it was pretty easy to find some of the most surprising skaters. The most difficult was limiting it to 10 players per column.

However, scoring at almost 30-year highs meant goalies were the bane of many fantasy general managers. There were fewer elite netminders, and those that struggled seemed to struggle more than in previous seasons.

Of the 10 netminders on this list, six missed the postseason, while two are in the playoffs but as backup as they lost their starter’s job. Two of the netminders were backups but spent the second half of the season in the AHL.

Note that goalies who were great but missed time due to injury aren’t included (so no Jeremy Swayman, for example).

10. Alex Nedeljkovic

Last September, I wrote that Nedeljkovic was one of 10 players who won’t bounce back (if you go back to look at that column, just skip over the Jamie Benn section). Once projected to be a significant fantasy netminder, Nedeljkovic went into this season relegated to backing up (or being a 1b option at best) newly-signed Ville Husso. Nedeljkovic struggles at the start of the season cost him games. By the end of December, he had started only eight contests and gave up at least four goals in six of them, highlighted by eight against the Sabres on Halloween night. That’s when the team made the decision to send him to the AHL for a couple of months. One positive is that he was excellent when he was temporarily called back up in late March. That 3-3 record across March and April may not look great, but one loss was in relief when he gave up one goal and one loss was when he allowed only two goals. He gave up two goals or fewer in three of his five starts, highlighted by a 43-save win against the Leafs.

9. Tristan Jarry

In a season where Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby both played 82 games, the Penguins missing the playoffs seemed impossible. While the litany of injuries to the team’s defense and the makeup of the team cost Brian Burke and Ron Hextall their jobs, Jarry seems to be avoiding some of the brunt. However, his decline in play this season compared to last year was a big part of the reason the team missed the postseason. While injuries limited Jarry to 11 fewer games, his goals against average rose from 2.42 to 2.90, while his save percentage dropped from .919 to .909. His record also went from 34-18-6 to 24-13-7. What’s interesting is that he saved his worst for last, winning 15 of his first 21 games, and then winning only nine of 23 the rest of the way.

8. Jordan Binnington

The netminder with a temper, Binnington’s numbers aren’t all that much worse from a year ago. The problem is, a year ago, he posted below significantly below-average numbers. However, he was also injured for quite a bit of time a year ago, which could explain why the Blues were more successful on the ice. Overall, his GAA dropped from 3.13 a year ago to 3.31 this year, while his save percentage went from .901 to 0.894. Both marks last year were already career lows. He still managed to put up 27 wins this season, but it took 61 games to get there. The only bright side would be if your league counted PIM for netminders, as Binnington led all goalies with 29 PIM.

7. Cal Petersen

A couple of years ago, it appeared as if Petersen was going to be the Kings’ goalie of the future. Things were lining up that he would be ready to take over the team’s top netminding duties right around the time the team started to come out of its rebuild. Last year was proof of his potential, as he finished 20-14-2 with three shutouts, earning a three-year, $15-million extension. However, that was his highlight of this season. While he was an alright 5-3-2, his goals against average was 3.75 and his save percentage was 0.868 per cent. He had only three quality starts in those 10 games before he was put on waivers. Once he cleared, he was sent to the AHL, where he was hot and cold. Thanks to Pheonix Copley‘s adequate performance in the NHL, Petersen was never given the opportunity to get back to the big leagues.

6. John Gibson

Somehow, despite low expectations and being one of the last netminders drafted in one-year leagues, Gibson managed to perform even worse than anticipated. For the last few years, Gibson has hovered around a 3.00 to 3.20 GAA. This year, that number skyrocketed to 3.99 as he gave up at least four goals in 31 games. Gibson won only 14 of his 53 games played. He never had a three-game winning streak all season, and it took until the end of January before he won two in a row. In his last month of action (March 12 to April 13), he went 0-7-1 with a 4.92 GAA and a .875 SV%.

5. Elvis Merzlikins

The season started awfully for Merzlikins, losing five of his first seven starts and giving up at least four goals in all five losses. And then things seemed to get worse from there. Only once did he play a full game and give up two or fewer goals. After a couple of wins on October 18 and October 20, he won only five of his next 27 games. On 10 occasions, he gave up at least five goals. His best stretch of games took place from January 28 to March 3, where he still gave up three goals in all seven starts (he went 2-3-2 in those games). He finished with a 7-18-2 record, a 4.23 GAA and a 0.876 SV%. You’d have to go back to the 1993-94 season to find a netminder with a worst goals against average while playing at least 25 games (Darren Madeley and Craig Billington, both with the Ottawa Senators).

4. Sergei Bobrovsky

While no one expected him to repeat last year’s performance of a 39-7-3 record, this year was a much bigger letdown than anticipated. A 24-20-4 record was too much of a market correction, and his GAA rose by almost half a goal per game to 3.07 (the second-worst mark of his career), while his save percentage dropped to .902 (his third-worst mark). In fantasy playoffs, he had a stretch where he gave up a minimum of four goals in five of seven contests. An illness then cost him the rest of the season down the stretch, but considering how he was playing, that was probably a blessing for fantasy hockey general managers.

3. Marc-Andre Fleury

If you look at Fleury’s career statistics, you will find that his stats for the last two years are almost identical:

2021-22: 56 games, 28-23-5, four shutouts, 2.90 GAA, .908 SV%

2022-23: 46 games, 24-16-4, two shutouts, 2.85 GAA, .908 SV%

So why the disappointment? Last year he played most of the season with the Chicago Blackhawks, a team so bad that they decided it was time to blow it up and rebuild. This year he was expected to post elite numbers with the Wild and was a top-10 goalie pick in almost every Yahoo league. While he was okay, he wound up losing the starting gig to Filip Gustavsson, who was much better than Fleury.

2. Jack Campbell

His win-loss record of 21-9-4 is excellent, and someone who was just looking at statistics without any background information would think that Campbell had a great season. If that was a backup or someone who was in a 1B situation who posted those numbers, we’d be talking about how Impressive that netminder was. Campbell signed a five-year deal last summer and finished with a 3.41 GAA and a 0.888 SV%. He lost the starting gig from the middle of November to the end of December before getting it back at the start of January. He then allowed three or fewer goals in his next 10 games and things looked hopeful, but he followed that up with at least four goals allowed in each of his next seven contests. He started only six of the team’s last 25 games, losing the gig to Stuart Skinner.

1. Jacob Markstrom

Looking back, we should have seen this downfall coming. Sure, there have been Vezina-calibre goalies in past history who have dropped in production from one season to the next, but Markstrom was worse in nearly every single category this year compared to last year. He dropped from 37 wins to 23. His losses (including overtime and shootout losses) went from 24 losses to 33. His shutouts went from nine to one. His saves total went from 1,617 to 1,376. He went from one of the best netminders in goals against average and save percentage to one of the worst. He was losing starts to Daniel Vladar. He won three games in a stretch of hockey from January 1 to March 4. For such a high fantasy draft pick, it was an awful turnaround, but maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised. Looking at his career, last season’s awesome performance is an aberration. Aside from last year, he only finished with more than 23 wins in one other season (and that was 28). In every other season combined, he only had nine career shutouts. This year was more about reinforcing the type of netminder we should expect him to be rather than a continuation of that one fantastical year.