Mid-round goaltenders are playing big NHL minutes

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National Hockey League franchises have been reticent to invest valuable draft picks at the goaltending position in the modern era – even for blue-chip prospects. There are any number of reasons for this, but chief among them is the volatility at the position relative to forwards or defencemen.

Get 32 general managers into a room, and they will all tell you the same thing. If it’s hard to evaluate forwards and defencemen at the junior or international level, it can be impossible for goaltenders.

Skaters (forwards in particular) have much more control over their single-game production than a goaltender, who is largely beholden to the quality and structure of the defence in front of him. A forward who scores 50 goals in a single season at any level of competition below the NHL is going to see his stock rise. A goaltender who stops many shots may as well, but with those saves will come a typical question: Was it the goaltender, the defence in front of him, or a combination of the two?

The NHL has also benefited from a significant rise in available talent at the goaltending position, thanks in large part to European imports over the past two decades. It’s given front offices optionality, and it’s also made their investment decisions easier when it comes to the deployment of assets or utilization of cap space.

Said another way, not only are teams less likely to burn high draft picks on goaltenders, they are also more likely to consider cheaper platoon options at the NHL level, mitigating the downside risk some teams (think Florida with Sergei Bobrovsky, or Montreal with Carey Price) are currently struggling to manage. It’s why just three goaltenders (Spencer Knight, Yaroslav Askarov, and Sebastian Cossa) have