The 2025 NHL goalie watchability rankings

A simple, fun Friday exercise to close out the work week.

Jan 17, 2025

I was the Detroit Red Wings 6-2 win against the Seattle Kraken on Sunday.

It was a blowout where Philipp Grubauer was yanked in the first period and replaced by Joey Daccord, prompting the following tweet.

Seeing that post, my pal Dimitri Filipovic reached out inviting me to come onto his show, The PDOcast, and dedicate an entire episode to goalie watchability rankings.

So that’s what we did on Friday, I joined Dimitri for an hour to discuss goalie watchability.

You can listen to that full episode here, it was a fun chat.

Now before we get into my list, I want to clarify what we are actually ranking here. This isn’t a ranking of the top goalies in the NHL, far from it. Goaltending has become a very robotic and boring position, and some of the best at it are extremely boring — they specialize in minimizing entertainment, not adding to it.

But there are some goalies, be it through style or athleticism or decision making, that make the game more fun. If you’re a goalie addict like me, it might be the reason you even tune into a specific game.

So, let’s get into my list of the top-10 goalies right now when it comes to watchability, with some video evidence for light Friday reading/viewing.

10. Marc-Andre Fleury