The title for top cap goalie moves on again, with Alexandar Georgiev sitting on the throne at the moment (the only Bulgarian born NHL player). Georgiev is right in his prime now, on an excellent team, a reasonable cap hit, no big threat to his workload, and is a great goalie in his own right. He's not going to be cheap to acquire, but he does paint a picture that when a Stanley Cup contender acquires a well-thought-of backup to be their new starter on a cheaper deal, we should probably be paying attention.

The one surprise in tier one – or at least a surprise to some – may be Vitek Vanecek. He doesn't have the name value that fits with the rest of the group, but 34 wins, a sub 2.5 GAA, a contract identical to Georgiev, and an excellent team in front of him, he's worth paying attention to. If you're trying to acquire Georgiev this summer, and can't get the trade over the hump, then try taking that same return to the Vanecek owner (or start a little lower if you want) and see if you can solve your goaltending woes that way.

The two highest ranked players with the NR marking in their rows are Devon Levi and Dustin Wolf, who were both unrated in the last iteration because of their arrival timelines. Well it appears that both goalies are trying to show that those timelines should be accelerated, and they may even make regular starts in the NHL as soon as this fall. However, both do have two goalies on one-way deals in front of them on the depth chart, so it's not a sure thing for this year.

The NHL may be getting younger, but it is tough for goalies to make a real impact before the age of 25. Some do, like Jake Oettinger, and the other top players, which is what Levi and Wolf are. They may be a few years before they're starting more than 40 games in a season, but they should make smaller volume impacts in the short term.

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.