With Dustin Wolf's extension kicking in for the purposes of the salary cap rankings now that we have flipped over to the 2026-27 season, we have a new top-dog. Two seasons ago, Jakub Dobes was the Habs' number-four goalie, and was on hardly anyone's fantasy radar. Now, at 24 years old, he is the undisputed starter on a final-four team, making only $115K more than the minimum NHL salary next year.

Brandon Bussi is facing off against Dobes in the Eastern Conference Final, except Bussi is currently keeping the bench warm while Frederik Andersen and his playoff experience is who the Canes have decided to live or die by. As Andersen is a UFA this summer, Bussi appears to be in a good position to take at least half of the regular season starts next season, and after 31 wins in 39 games it's possible that he has another solid follow up.

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.