Logan Thompson left off more than half of NHL GMs’ Vezina ballots as Andrei Vasilevskiy takes home trophy
Logan Thompson should have plenty of motivation for next season after the reveal of how NHL general managers voted on this year’s Vezina Trophy.
Thompson, who was not among the three finalists for the award, was completely left off the ballot by over half of the league’s top decision makers. Despite being arguably the NHL’s best statistical goaltender during the 2025-26 season, Thompson received only two first-place votes, four second-place votes, and seven third-place votes.
The results mean 18 GMs didn’t believe Thompson was one of the top three goalies in the league. He finished in fourth place overall, earning the same number of first-place votes as fifth-place finisher Scott Wedgewood.
2026 Vezina Trophy voting
Rank
Goalie
Points
(1st-2nd-3rd)
1.
Andrei Vasilevskiy, TBL
114
(17-9-2)
2.
Ilya Sorokin, NYI
51
(8-1-8)
3.
Jeremy Swayman, BOS
46
(2-9-9)
4.
Logan Thompson, WSH
29
(2-4-7)
5.
Scott Wedgewood, COL
21
(2-3-2)
6.
Dan Vladar, PHI
9
(0-2-3)
7.
Igor Shesterkin, NYR
6
(0-2-0)
8.
Jake Oettinger, DAL
3
(0-1-0)
(5-3-1 points allocation)
Thompson, who also earned votes for the Lady Byng Trophy, played his second season with the Washington Capitals, taking on a much heavier workload than in his first. In 58 appearances, the 29-year-old backstop went 31-21-6 with a 2.44 goals-against average, a .912 save percentage, and four shutouts. The 58 games were the most he has played in a single season in his career and were 15 more than he played in the 2024-25 season.
According to MoneyPuck, Thompson was also the top goalie in the NHL in goals saved above expected, recording 29.3, which was the most by a goalie not named Connor Hellebuyck since Juuse Saros posted 46.7 during the 2022-23 campaign.
Andrei Vasilevskiy, the Tampa Bay Lightning‘s number-one netminder, was ultimately voted the winner of the trophy for the second time in his career. Vasilevskiy went 39-15-4 with a 2.31 goals-against average, a .912 save percentage, and two shutouts. He finished with 4.6 fewer goals saved above expected than Thompson, playing on a Lightning team that finished 11 points ahead of the Capitals in the standings.
Vasilevskiy was surprised with the honor last week when the Tampa Police Department told the Russian goaltender that their K-9 unit had detected a suspicious package inside his car outside Benchmark International Arena. Inside the package was this year’s Vezina Trophy.
“It was a surprise,” Vasilevskiy said. “I was just happy that my car was in one piece, and I didn’t want to go through the insurance process. Big surprise. This was a great show.”
Vasilevskiy earned 17 of the 32 first-place votes, with fellow Russian Ilya Sorokin netting eight in second place and Jeremy Swayman notching two in third place. His six appearances as a Vezina finalist are matched by just three goaltenders under the trophy’s current selection criteria (since 1981-82): Martin Brodeur (9), Patrick Roy (7), and Dominik Hasek (6).
