<p>With the final days of 2023 ahead, I figured what better way to celebrate some of the best performances that we’ve witnessed in the calendar year. Over these last five days of the year, I’ll look at the best players at all five positions (goaltender, defense, right wing, left wing, and center) from 2023, which includes the January to April months of the 2022-23 season, the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the start so far in the 2023-24 season.</p>



<p>Today, we’ll be looking at the goaltenders. Often the most volatile position, this list likely has the most change due to how frequently a goalie’s performance can rise and fall. A big trend on here as well is that we’re seeing less and less goalies whose performances are not so much impressive for how much they’re playing, but more so for the quality of the performance itself, especially as the list goes on. </p><div class="injected-ad injected-video" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="0" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="153"></div>



<p>Let’s look at a few honourable mentions before kicking off the countdown:</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-honourable-mentions">Honourable Mentions</h3>



<p><strong>Juuse Saros</strong></p>



<p>Saros just lost out from cracking the top five after another incredible regular season in 2022-23, especially those final months in 2023 when he almost got the Nashville Predators to the playoffs. However, his start to the year so far hasn’t been ideal, so he finds himself on the outside this year.</p>



<p><strong>Filip Gustavsson</strong></p>



<p>Speaking of goalies with incredible 2022-23 seasons, Gustavsson’s performance that season was one of the best and it carried into the playoffs, and he probably would have gotten some Vezina votes if not for the fact that he only played 39 games. Much like Saros, his start to the 2023-24 season hasn’t been great, but he’s seen some improvement lately now that the Minnesota Wild have found their footing under John Hynes (a.k.a. the goaltending wasn’t as unlucky).</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="1" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="146"></div>



<p><strong>Sergei Bobrovsky</strong></p>



<p>Bobrovsky’s regular season in 2023 wasn’t good enough to get true consideration for the list, although he’s still been good enough to allow the Florida Panthers to stay competitive. However, his performance in the 2023 playoffs once he finally got the crease back is one of the more impressive runs we’ve seen from a goalie in a long time, so I had to give him a shout out.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">5. Thatcher Demko</h2>



<p><strong>Regular Season:</strong>&nbsp;42 GP, 0.924 5v5 Sv%, 27.23 5v5 GSAx, 4 SO<br><strong>Playoffs:</strong>&nbsp;N/A</p>



<p>The start of the 2022-23 season couldn’t have gone worse for Thatcher Demko, as he seemed to struggle to keep the puck out of the net, and it was one of a plethora of reasons why the Vancouver Canucks struggled right out of the gate that season. Once he got hurt midway through the season, it was one to forget, but lost in that mess of a season for him is that when he returned for the final month and a bit of the regular season, he had already started to return to form.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="2" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="175"></div>



<p>Once the 2023-24 season rolled around, he was not only back to form, but putting up his best performance yet. Some of that is due to a regression from his poor 2022-23 season, but there’s a reason he was starting to put himself into that conversation with the other elite goalies in the league. It’s a big part of why the Canucks are looking as dominant as they are to start the year, and even though they might come back down to Earth a bit, Demko will likely help them to a playoff spot and maybe even put up a performance like his 2020 series against the Vegas Golden Knights.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">4. Ilya Sorokin</h2>



<p><strong>Regular Season:</strong>&nbsp;56 GP, 0.931 5v5 Sv%, 37.01 5v5 GSAx, 5 SO<br><strong>Playoffs:</strong>&nbsp;6 GP, 0.944 5v5 Sv%, 5.42 5v5 GSAx</p>



<p>While he doesn’t crack the top spot or even the podium, Sorokin is probably the player everyone thinks of as the best goaltender in the league right now. He’s certainly in that elite group of goalies that you can actually rely on every season, and his play in the past couple of seasons could easily give him the top spot overall, although Andrei Vasilevskiy’s playoff success might have something to say about that title.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="3" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="202"></div>



<p>Linus Ullmark won the Vezina Trophy due to historic numbers, but Sorokin made a better case than many expected as a challenger for the award. Sorokin put up excellent numbers throughout the year with a .919 save percentage in the regular season and a .929 save percentage in the playoffs, and while the New York Islanders have the reputation as a defensive-minded team, they haven’t been one in recent seasons, only appearing as such because of their goalie. It’s a shame that they don’t have a better team in front of him, because Sorokin is the kind of goalie who can drag you to a potential Cup.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">2 &amp; 3. Jeremy Swayman/Linus Ullmark</h2>



<p><strong>Regular Season:</strong>&nbsp;39 GP, 0.932 5v5 Sv%, 34.09 5v5 GSAx, 6 SO <strong>|</strong> 42 GP, 0.931 5v5 Sv%, 30.4 5v5 GSAx, Vezina Trophy<br><strong>Playoffs:</strong>&nbsp;2 GP, 0.875 5v5 Sv%, -1.62 5v5 GSAx <strong>|</strong> 6 GP, .906 5v5 Sv%, -0.76 5v5 GSAx</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="4" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="145"></div>



<p>It’s a bit of a cop out to put these two at the same level, but considering that part of their success is due to the fact that they can rotate and rest in a 1A/1B tandem, along with the friendly and supportive competition they have with each other, I think their success as a collaboration should be acknowledged as such, and not due to their personal success. Plus, they’ve both performed at a similar level, so it makes sense.</p>



<p>Ullmark got a lot of the attention last season due to the insane level of play he was able to consistently put up in the 2022-23 season, giving him the Vezina Trophy for that year, but Swayman has been just as good if not better once the calendar flipped to 2023 all year, and it’s their play together that has kept the Bruins as dominant as always this year despite the losses of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci. Their playoff performance wasn’t quite as good, and is a big reason why they aren’t number one, but make no doubt, this is not just the best goaltending tandem in the game, but it’s also made up of two of the best goalies in the league right now.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="5" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="206"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-1-adin-hill">1. Adin Hill</h2>



<p><strong>Regular Season:</strong>&nbsp;29 GP, 0.934 5v5 Sv%, 23.2 5v5 GSAx, 2 SO<br><strong>Playoffs:</strong>&nbsp;16 GP, 0.938 5v5 Sv%, 13.13 5v5 GSAx, 2 SO, Stanley Cup</p>



<p>Adin Hill is admittedly pushing the limits in terms of games played to qualify for this list, especially this high. In the calendar year of 2023, he’s only played 29 regular season games, and he only got into 16 playoff games since he didn’t take the starting duties until the second round of the 2023 playoffs. But among goalies that have played at least that many games, no one has been better than Hill.</p>



<p>In fact, he leads all goalies with that much playing time in regular season save percentage in 2023 with .932%, and also did the same in the 2023 playoffs with an identical .932%. Add in the fact that his play in the playoffs gave him a Stanley Cup and his play this season has put him in the conversation for the Vezina Trophy, I’d say that you can’t do much better than what Hill did this season, even in an admittedly smaller sample size than everyone else here. Not bad for a goalie who was a perennial backup for the entirety of his career before this year.</p><div class="injected-ad" data-nn-ad-tech-injection-count="6" data-nn-ad-tech-max-gap="130" data-nn-ad-tech-current-gap="203"></div>



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