And we have come to the final week in our fantasy MVP series. Today we will be covering goalies. The previous entries can be viewed here.

The process for goalies will be much the same as with skater articles, though using different categories and scoring metrics. 'Most Valuable' is still a tricky term that is going to be completely dependent on the league specific context. For this article we are going to use standard Yahoo point scoring to calculate the total fantasy points for each player. This year the stats include wins, shutouts, saves, and goals against. Obviously, this means there might be some general deviations to your league, based on your settings, but it is at least a good starting point. To grab all this data, I am heading over to Frozen Tools, exporting the Goalie Big Board Report for the full season and doing a bit of rearranging so I can have only the pertinent fields.

The table below contains the top three total fantasy producers in goal for the 25-26 season. We start with basic player information on the left (name, team, and total games) then get into some production stats (wins, save percentage, and quality start percentage), and finally Yahoo standard league fantasy points.

First up, who were the top three goalies this year?

Andrei Vasilevskiy is no surprise as he's consistently (with the exception of a couple of hiccups) been near the top of the goalie rankings. Jake Oettinger is not really a surprise either. Karel Vejmelka on the other hand is a bit unusual as is a notable absence from the list Connor Hellebuyck. To get a better handle on these surprises I have also pulled average draft position data (ADP). These ADPs are based on preseason drafts so don't take into account leagues and drafts that started part way through the season. The idea here is that if we compare the draft position to the end of year fantasy points for all goalies, we can get an equation that lets us say, 'on average a player with X draft position would be expected to get Y fantasy points'. Once we have that we can compare that expected number to the player's actual number and see who performed the best based on their draft position. Unlike with skaters, we tend to see a lot more individual variation, so while we do get a trend line, in general goalies tend to be scattered much further from the trend line than skaters.

Our next table contains the players who provided the most value once we account for where they were drafted. I have included their ADP data, and the difference between each goalie's expected fantasy points and their actual fantasy points.

Logan Thompson had a strong first season in Washington in 2024-25. I think the lingering hesitation was the 43 games played and a reasonably strong showing from Charlie Lindgren who essentially alternated starts with Thompson and so reduced the latter's overall value. By the end of 2024-25 though Thompson really seemed to solidify his role as the starter and that continued into 2025-26. He ended the season with 58 games played, 31 wins, and very strong save percentage and quality start numbers. It was an excellent season, and managers were able to get him at a bit of a discount on draft day.

While Joel Hofer technically has an ADP, in most standard-ish sized leagues he likely wasn't drafted. He has been the heir apparent in St. Louis for several seasons and really seemed to seize the reins in 2025-26. His 46 games played was a career high, and while he didn't have quite the save percentage or quality start numbers as Thompson, he was found money for most managers particularly over the second half.

Karel Vejmelka's individual numbers are not as strong, but he made up for it in sheer volume. He played 64 games for Utah, five more than the next-most played goalies. There isn't a ton else to say here really, he was fine in the games he played, he just got a ton of them.

On the flip side we have several players who underperformed their draft position significantly. 

With goalies it is even harder to separate performance from injury status and that is certainly the case for several players on the list. Still though, each situation has some additional context that is worth adding.

Adin Hill came into the 2025-26 season as the presumed starter for a good team in Vegas. He has just played 50 games after all. He unfortunately missed a chunk of time due to injuries, performed poorly in the time he did get (a 29.6 percent quality start number is just not acceptable), and has been usurped by Carter Hart who joined the team in December (if we can take our knowledge of the playoffs into account here). All in all, not a good season for Hill or those who drafted him at his ADP.

We go from bad to worse here as at least Adin Hill is still in the NHL. Montembeault ended 2024-25 having played 62 games and a 53.2 quality start percentage. There were still some questions about him and the Canadiens, but he was a depth target in a lot of leagues. He crashed and burned like few other goalies have. There aren't too many examples of a guy who went from 62 games to an AHL demotion in the span of about half a season. Montreal has been running with Jakub Dobes and Jacob Fowler, and given their playoff performances there seems to be no reason for them to reconsider just sticking with that pair going forward.

Thatcher Demko was fine in the games that he played, but we have a second season in a row where he failed to pass 23 games played because of injury. That was the concern going into the season and is again going to be the biggest knock against him in the future. Vancouver is a mess so we probably shouldn't be too optimistic for the games he does play either, making Demko a very unappealing target in the future.

Finally, I will wrap the column with a few goalies who provided the most value but generally weren't drafted.

I already mentioned Jakub Dobes above, but here is his due. He stepped in for a floundering Montembeault and was good for the Canadiens. He ends the season with 43 games and as of this writing just earned a win in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final. As stated above, there is no reason he shouldn't be considered Montreal's 1A going forward.

Alex Lyon had an interesting season. He went on several runs as the starter in Buffalo to due injury or inconsistent play of other goalies and played 36 games overall with a 64 percent quality start number. If you happened to roster him during one of these ones he was incredibly valuable. But there were significant periods of time when he was very quiet and didn't play much.

Something similar happened to Brandon Bussi. When both of Carolina's goalies were out with injury he stepped in and was impressive through December and January. He certainly flagged down the stretch and played a lot less toward the end of the season. His numbers weren't incredible either, but part of that is the typical Carolina problem of goalies allowing a couple of goals on not many shots leading to poor save percentage numbers even if you still end up with the win. Frederik Andersen grabbed games back down the stretch and has gotten all of the games so far in the playoffs so Bussi's run might be about over, but it certainly was a good ride for managers who were able to grab him for free.

That is all for this week.

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