Welcome to Goalie Week. NHL Social is celebrating goaltending with NHL Goalie Week from Sept. 2-7, reveling in the uniqueness and artistry of puck-stoppers through the decades. Today, NHL.com looks at the toughest goalies to score on, according to fellow NHL players.
Andrei Vasilevskiy did not win the Vezina Trophy as the best goalie in the NHL last season, but according to several players in the game today, there is no one in the League more difficult to score against than the Tampa Bay Lightning veteran.
Just ask forward Jake Guentzel, who signed with the Lightning as a free agent before the 2024-25 season, but for the previous eight seasons he saw Vasilevskiy in his nightmares. He has scored at least 30 goals in six of his past eight NHL seasons, but he never fancied seeing the man they call the “Big Cat,” scoring four goals on 39 shots (10.3 percent) in 10 games.
“I am glad he’s on my team,” Guentzel said with a laugh last week at United States Olympic Orientation Camp in Plymouth, Michigan. “He’s huge. Moves so well, so agile and he is fast side to side.”
Vasilevskiy’s imposing 6-foot-4 frame was brought up by almost every player that named him as their arch nemesis, but there were other reasons, too.
“He’s dynamic, he moves well, he reads the puck well,” said Washington Capitals forward Tom Wilson, who has one goal against Vasilevskiy on 33 shots (3 percent) in 20 games. “Nothing really gets through him by accident, he’s just very good positionally.
“He’s kind of been the benchmark for goalies the last eight, nine, 10 years probably.”
Of the 42 NHL players asked about the toughest goalie to solve going into this season, 16 said Vasilevskiy, a two-time Stanley Cup winner, Conn Smythe winner as playoff most valuable player in 2021-22, and 2018-19 Vezina winner.