Hill, Thompson not Among NHL.com’s Top 10 Goalies

NHL.com released their list of top 10 goalies in the NHL. A combination of stats and playoff accolades were key in determining who made the top 10.

Spoiler alert; Vegas Golden Knights goalies Logan Thompson and Adin Hill did not make the list of 10-best goalies in the NHL. Can a case be made for one of them to be in the bottom half of the top 10? Before we get to that, here is who made the top 10 list of best NHL goalies.

1. Andrei Vasilevskiy, Tampa Bay Lightning
2. Igor Shesterkin, New York Rangers
3. Ilya Sorokin, New York Islanders
4. Connor Hellebuyck, Winnipeg Jets
5. Juuse Saros, Nashville Predators
6. Linus Ullmark, Boston Bruins
7. Jake Oettinger, Dallas Stars
8. Alexandar Georgiev, Colorado Avalanche
9. Filip Gustavsson, Minnesota Wild
10. Thatcher Demko, Vancouver Canucks

What would the case be for Thompson and or Hill to crack the list of top 10 goalies?

Thompson: Things were going well for Thompson prior to injury troubles. Thompson was out-starting Hill at a two-to-one pace until February. The stats do not support Thompson being a top-10 goalie last season. Thompson ranked 10th with a 2.65 goals-against-average and 14th with a 0.915 save percentage.

Thompson had a solid season when healthy, but it is hard to make a case for him to be on the list of top-10 goalies.

Hill: Stats support Hill being on the fringe of top-1o goalies. Hill ranked 10th with a 2.46 goals-against-average and 11th with a 0.915 save percentage.

What separates Hill from every goalie on the top-10 list is his performance in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Hill had the second-best playoff save percentage of all time. Jonathan Marchessault won the Conn Smythe with 80 points. (13 first-place votes). Hill finished third place with 17 points.

Where should Hill rank? Demko had 61 starts last season and went 33-22-7 on a poor Vancouver Canucks team. He had a 2.72 goals-against-average and 0.915 save percentage.

Hill and Demko had similar regular-season stats, the difference is the playoff run for Hill.

One would think having the second best playoff save percentage of all time and third in Conn Smythe voting would be enough to push Hill into the top-10 goalies. NHL.com disagrees.