NHL
NHL Season
Is Here
Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin has a sizable lead with 8.1 goals saved above expected, which paces the NHL by a wide margin. Bruce Bennett / Getty Images
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Good morning everyone, but especially NHL goaltenders, who could all use a hug as they’re getting scored on at the highest rate we’ve seen in two decades. We’ll get into that.
It’s a tough time to be a goalie. The leaguewide save percentage has dipped below .900 for the first time since 1996. It’s a small sample size of early-season hockey, when defenses historically lag behind the offense, but it continues a trend of depreciating save percentages for the last 10 years.
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As difficult as it is to stymie offenses in 2025-26, we are going to celebrate and break down a few goalies who are playing exceptionally well early in the season.
• Igor Shesterkin, New York Rangers: He was rated the best goalie in the world in my preseason goalie tiers, and through five games he is proving the anonymous panel of goalie coaches and retired netminders right. He has stood on his head on a regular basis with windmill glove saves galore and has raced out to a sizable lead with 8.1 goals saved above expected, which paces the NHL by a wide margin (Thatcher Demko is second with 5.2).
• Thatcher Demko, Vancouver Canucks: He’s back! It’s a wonderful sight to see the big man looking like himself after last year’s wasted season. When he’s on his game, Demko is one of the toughest goalies to score on in the world, and that has been the case through his first three starts this season. Perhaps just as important, he has looked like the big, hulking, explosive, athletic goalie who finished runner-up to Connor Hellebuyck for the 2023 Vezina Trophy.
• Jeremy Swayman, Boston Bruins: Speaking of goalies on track for a bounce-back season, Swayman has looked like the player Boston expected when it signed him to a mega extension last fall. He is tracking the puck well, and controlling his rebounds even better. His calm, controlled butterfly style makes the position look far easier than it should and makes life easy on his defensemen, who rarely have to worry about rebounds spilled into dangerous areas.
• Scott Wedgewood, Colorado Avalanche: After last year’s disastrous start to the season in the crease for the Avalanche, there was plenty of reason for concern when Mackenzie Blackwood underwent surgery this offseason that would sideline him into the regular season. Wedgewood has erased those fears with an excellent start. He has won four of his first five starts and allowed only a single goal in all four.
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• Karel Vejmelka, Utah Mammoth: Only Shesterkin, Demko and Wedgewood have saved more goals above expected than Vejmelka this season. The 29-year-old is making an early case to be Czechia’s starting goalie in the Olympics with a .929 save percentage through three starts.
Goaltender Carter Hart, one of five Canadian hockey players found not guilty of sexual assault charges this summer, took the first step toward a return to the NHL by signing a professional tryout deal with the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday. He is the first of the five to sign with an NHL team.
Hart took the ice at the Golden Knights practice facility Thursday morning, skating with goalie coach Sean Burke and a few of his new teammates. Afterwards, he spoke to members of the media for the first time since he faced charges and went through an eight-week trial in London, Ont. The trial involved five members of Canada’s 2018 World Junior Championship gold-medal team, and centered around what took place in a hotel room between the players and a then-20-year-old woman following a celebration at a bar.
“It’s been a long road to get back to this point, and to get back to playing the game of hockey, a game that I love,” Hart said in the dressing room, surrounded by a huddle of television cameras, media members and Vegas team employees. “I’ve been out of the game for a year and a half now. I’ve learned a lot, I’ve grown a lot, and I’m just excited to move forward.”
Hart can’t play in the NHL until Dec. 1 but can begin practicing immediately and will be eligible to play in conditioning games in the American Hockey League beginning on Nov. 15. In the meantime, Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said he expects Hart to be around the team and participate in practices, although he’s not sure to what extent. As of Friday, it had been 636 days since Hart’s last NHL action in Philadelphia.
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“I’ve had a normal summer of training with everybody back home in Edmonton,” Hart said. “We got a good group of guys there. The past month, everybody’s been gone, so I’ve just been skating with my goalie coach back home, and there are a few shooters kind of hanging around. I’ve been doing everything I can to stay ready and stay prepared.”
You can read Hart’s full comments, as well as comments from his new teammates Mark Stone and Jack Eichel in the full story.
The Athletic’s Power Rankings Boys, Dom Luszczyszyn and Sean Gentille, unveiled their first list of the new season on Friday, with the 4-0-1 Colorado Avalanche taking the top spot.
The Avs have outscored their opposition 17-9 and have their top line of Nathan MacKinnon, Martin Nečas and Artturi Lehkonen have more goals at even strength (six) than any line in hockey.
Check out how all 32 teams stack up and tell the guys how wrong they are.
One of our favorite annual NHL rites of passage each fall is teams’ releases of new uniforms. Of course, some are better than others, which is half the fun. So, we ranked the league’s nine new alternate unis. They range from the new and creative, like the Seattle Kraken …
… to the snooze-worthy, from the Ottawa Senators:
This year’s New York Rangers surpassed the 2001-02 Florida Panthers (155 minutes, 17 seconds) for the longest season-opening scoreless streak at home, but that record is only among franchises that still exist.
Which now-defunct team went further into the season before their first home goal?
Answer below.
🐙 Al Sobotka, a former Red Wings Zamboni driver so dear to the franchise that its mascot was named for him, lost a yearslong age discrimination case against the team, which fired him in 2022 after he urinated in the Zamboni garage.
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📉 Looking for a perfect metaphor for being a Maple Leafs fan? This one comes to us courtesy of “Survivor,” which featured a Leafs fan contestant who was eliminated early. Because he was snake-bitten. Literally.
🏒 Murat Ates wrote a wonderful piece on how Jets star Kyle Connor uses his platform to raise awareness for Parkinson’s disease.
💰 Money — from NIL to schools paying players directly — is changing college hockey recruiting. Scott Wheeler and Joe Smith explain how.
🎙️ On the Thursday edition of “The Athletic Hockey Show,” Hailey Salvian, Sean Gentille and I (Jesse Granger) discussed Carter Hart joining the Vegas Golden Knights after weeks of speculation. Plus, Arpon Basu talked about Lane Hutson’s contract extension with the Habs and some concerns about Olympic accommodations for NHLers in Milan next year. Listen here.
📺 Lightning @ Red Wings
7 p.m. ET on ESPN+ / Sportsnet
The Red Wings are off to a strong start thanks to Cam Talbot’s heroics in net. Talbot has won all three of his starts to this point with a .932 save percentage. They haven’t been against the easiest of competition, either, with wins over Toronto and Florida. Tampa Bay has dropped three of four to open the season, so the Lightning should be hungry.
📺 Wild @ Capitals
7 p.m. ET on ESPN / Sportsnet
The NHL’s points leader, Kirill Kaprizov, leads Minnesota into Washington to face the Capitals, who are looking strong once again. This should be a fun one, especially if Aliaksei Protas gets some open looks. The big man’s whippy wrister is a treat to watch.
📺 Canucks @ Blackhawks
8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN / Sportsnet One
Vancouver is already looking to halt a mounting losing skid against a Blackhawks squad that has turned their three-game losing streak to start the season into two straight wins.
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Full NHL schedule here. Try streaming games like these for free on Fubo.
The 1928-29 Pittsburgh Pirates, led by coach Odie Cleghorn, went 187 minutes and 19 seconds before scoring their first goal at home. The man who eventually broke the drought was none other than Hib Milks, who went on to tie for the team lead in goals with nine goals in 44 games that season.
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Jesse Granger is a staff writer for The Athletic NHL based in Las Vegas covering the Golden Knights and goaltending across the league. He has covered the Golden Knights since its inception and was previously an award-winning reporter for the Las Vegas Sun. Follow Jesse on Twitter @JesseGranger_
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