The NHL's top 25 goalies of all time

Mike Vernon never won a Vezina Trophy, but he did finish in the top four several times and was the starting goalie on two different Stanley Cup winning teams, including the 1996-97 Detroit Red Wings when he was the Conn Smythe winner as the playoff MVP. His other Stanley Cup came as a member of the Calgary Flames during the 1988-89 season. Sure, his career totals are the result of being really good for a really long time, but if you can put together that sort of career, that is an incredible accomplishment. 

Probably one of the NHL's most underappreciated and forgotten great goalies, Vachon finally got his call to the Hall of Fame in 2018. He played a big role on two Stanley Cup winning teams in Montreal and then became a star with the Los Angeles Kings where he finished in the top three of the Hart Trophy voting two different times. He also had a .927 save percentage during the 1974-75 season, a mark that was pretty much unheard of during that era. 

We are going way back in time here, but Clint Benedict has a career worth remembering. For one, it was Benedict, and not Jacques Plante, who was the first goalie to wear a mask in an NHL game. (Plante made it popular, but Benedict was first.) He was also the first goalie who would drop to his knees to stop pucks along the ice. As a player, he was the backbone of Stanley Cup championship teams in Ottawa and with the Montreal Maroons. 

He was never drafted. He did not make his NHL debut until he was 28 years old. He did not become a full-time starter until he was 31 years old. He had to wait a long time, but once he got there he made the most of his opportunity by being a dominant starter for the Boston Bruins. His save percentage numbers are off the charts for any era, and he was the best player on a championship team in 2011. 

A shining example of durability, Joseph spent nearly two decades in the NHL and is currently among the league's top five all-time wins leaders. He never got that championship ring, and I don't know that you could ever say he was the best goalie in the league during his career, but he was consistently among the best over 19 years. That is worth a lot and definitely puts him among the best to ever play the position. 

Fuhr is a tough goalie to judge among the all-time greats because his accolades are off the charts. He is a Vezina winner, he was a finalist numerous times and he was the starting goalie on one of the league's most dominant dynasties. But he was also probably only, at best, the fifth- or sixth-best player on any of those teams. That's not really a knock on him, but it's just a testament to how much skill was on those Oilers teams of the 1980s. 

I don't think it's too early in his career to put him at this level. When he is healthy, there is not a bigger game-changing goalie in the NHL today. His 2014-15 season might be one of the greatest goaltending seasons in the history of the league as he took home the Jennings, Vezina, Hart, and Pearson awards while almost single-handedly carrying the Canadiens to a playoff spot. 

Belfour is an interesting case because his career spanned two very different eras of the NHL. He began his career in Chicago where he was a superstar goalie who won two Vezina's and was a top-five finisher two other times, all within his first five years. But his individual numbers fall short of the goalies who came after him because those seasons were during one of the highest-scoring eras in league history. Eventually, though, the league shifted toward a more defensive style (the dead puck era) where Belfour was still a dominant performer, helping lead the Dallas Stars to a pair of Stanley Cup Final appearances, including their 1998-99 championship season. No matter the era, no matter the style of play, Belfour was always one of the league's best goalies. 

Brimsek was a mainstay in the Boston net throughout the 1940s and was one of the best goalies of his era. Between 1939 and 1950, no goalie in the league won more games than he, and only Turk Broda had more shutouts, while he won a pair of Stanley Cups. 

When the award for the best player at your position is named after you, you were probably a pretty big deal. Vezina played in the early days of the NHL and was the best goalie of his time, finishing in the top three in goals-against average every year of his career, including three different years when he led the league. 

Compared to the goalies of today, Billy Smith's individual numbers look pretty terrible, but you have to take into account the era he was playing in. The 1970s and 1980s were the NHL's Wild West days for offense, when games routinely had eight or nine goals and goalie expectations were not the same as today. For his era, Smith was as good as it gets. He finished with 11 top-10 seasons in save percentage, including eight in the top five and four in the top three. Not enough? He was even better in the playoffs where he backstopped the Islanders dynasty to four consecutive Stanley Cups in the early 1980s. 

It's tough to evaluate goalies before, say, the 1960s because the numbers are so hard to find. But Broda was a rock in the Toronto net for more than a decade and consistently one of the best goalies in the league during his career. He is high on the NHL's all-time wins list even though he played only 629 games and didn't have the luxury of the shootout era to pad his win total. 

Esposito never had a chance to backstop the Chicago Blackhawks to a championship, but he had some incredible success and was not only a superstar in his day but also was one of the best goalies of all time and a Hall of Famer. He won three Vezina Trophies in the first eight years of his career and had some of the best single save percentages in league history when he first broke into the league. He was a truly dominant player who probably deserved more team success than he got. 

I'm not saying he wasn't great, but Martin Brodeur was probably a little bit overrated during his career...at least in the sense that he sometimes gets included in the discussion among THE BEST goalie of all time, instead of just what he is — one of the best. One of the top 15. His single-season numbers from a save percentage standpoint were never ones that would jump off the page, but they were still good, and his durability and shutout totals are unmatched in the history of the league. 

Former Montreal Canadiens goalies dominate the top of this list, and while Worsley spent the bulk of his career playing for other teams, he won all of his championships with the Canadiens. Some of his best individual play, however, may have come as a member of the New York Rangers. His save percentage was nearly unmatched by any of his peers during his era and is among the all-time leaders in pretty much every major goaltending category. 

Like Luongo, Lundqvist is going to be knocked for the lack of a title. But also like Luongo, he has been a consistently dominant netminder for his entire career. The lack of a championship also underrates just how dominant he has been in the playoffs, especially in Game 7s where his numbers are freakishly good. 

The knock on Roberto Luongo will be that he does not have a Stanley Cup on his resume or any significant individual awards. But he is hardly the only all-time great to lack a Stanley Cup, and I would argue the lack of awards is just a testament to how underappreciated his career is — a career that has been a remarkable combination of long-term durability and sustained dominance. Statistically, he is probably the best goalie of his era and is in the top 10 in wins, shutouts and has maintained a .920 save percentage for his career. 

Sawchuk is one of just two goalies in NHL history to record more than 100 shutouts, and his record stood for several decades before it was finally broken by Martin Brodeur. Along with the century mark in shutouts, he is also a four-time Vezina Trophy winner and a four-time Stanley Cup champion, including the 1967 championship with the Toronto Maple Leafs, the most recent title won by that organization. 

Bower was a dominant presence in the Toronto Maple Leafs net, especially during the eight-year stretch between 1959 and 1967 when he led the league in save percentage six times, won a pair of Vezina Trophies and helped the Maple Leafs win four Stanley Cups. Overall, his .922 save percentage is the third-best all time. 

Like Dryden, this is mainly about being so dominant over a short period of time that it's almost impossible not to put him among the all-time greats. He was at his best in the mid-1970s when he backstopped the Flyers to a pair of Stanley Cups. During those two years, Parent may have put together one of the best two-year runs of any goalie in league history, winning back-to-back Vezina's, back-to-back Conn Smythe's, finishing in the top five in Hart Trophy voting each year and recording 30 shutouts between the regular season (24) and playoffs (six).

Hall was another game-changer in that he was the first goalie to really popularize the "butterfly" style of goalkeeping in the NHL. He was also a dominant, durable and consistent performer who regularly led the league in games played and was a mainstay in the top five of the Hart Trophy voting nearly every year. 

One of my great "what-ifs" in the NHL is what if the Quebec Nordiques had never moved to Colorado? It forever changed hockey history not only because of what it did to the landscape of the league but also because of the impact it had on player movement and championships. And Patrick Roy is right at the center of that. If the Nordiques had stayed in Quebec, there is no way — NO WAY — the Canadiens trade him to their provincial rival in the mid 1990s when he forced his way out of Montreal. They would have traded him, for sure, but it would have been elsewhere in the league. Without Roy, the Avalanche never win their first Stanley Cup and maybe somebody else, with an all-time great goalie, goes on a run of championships. 

Jacques Plante helped revolutionize the game by making the goalie mask popular, but he was more than just a pioneer. He was also a titan of the game and one of the most dominant goalies to ever play the sport, winning six Vezina Trophies and six Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens. 

Ken Dryden played only eight years in the NHL but, wow, did he make the most of them. This is an example of dominance over a short period being worth more than pretty good for a long time. In those eight years, Dryden won a Conn Smythe Trophy, the Calder Trophy, five Vezina Trophies, led the league in save percentage three times and, oh by the way, was a six-time Stanley Cup champion. 

Forget just talking about goalies. Dominik Hasek is one of the most dominant players in NHL history regardless of position. His run with the Buffalo Sabres from 1993-1999 was one of the most absurd stretches in NHL history as he led the league in save percentage in six consecutive seasons, won five Vezina Trophies, and single-handedly carried an otherwise mediocre Sabres team to within two wins of a Stanley Cup. His career has everything you want in an all-time great: an incredible highlight reel, team success, individual dominance and every piece of hardware a player at his position could have possibly won. On the list of best all-time goalies, he is at the top every single time.