Every goalie goal ever scored, ranked, in way too much detail

These goalies are out of control.

You already know about Alex Nedeljkovic’s record-breaking Friday night, as he became the first goaltender in NHL to record a goal and an assist in the same game. But that goal doubled down on the history by also making the 2024-25 season the first to ever feature multiple goalie goals.

In fact, we’ve now had four goalie goals in less than two years, with Linus Ullmark in February of 2023 and Tristan Jarry that November. And yes, Jarry and Nedeljkovic both pulling it off means the Penguins go in the books as the first team to have two different goalies score goals.

That’s a lot of history. And it probably makes this a good time to regroup, with a way-too-in-depth ranking of every goalie goal the NHL has ever seen.

To be clear, for our purposes today, a “goalie goal” is when they shoot the puck the length of the ice into the net. We’re not counting all the times that a goalie has been credited with a goal after being the last player to touch the puck before a team scores on itself. Those moments are neat too, but they’re more statistical quirks than they are actual achievements. So with apologies to legendary offensive names like Damian Rhodes, Chris Mason and Mika Noronen, we’re looking for shooters today. Please don't come to my house and hack my ankles, Billy Smith.

As it turns out, we have an even dozen to choose from. We’ll rank them from worst to best, factoring in crucial criteria like the circumstances and the degree of difficulty, as well as important factors like the crowd, the call and the celebration. Let's do this.

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Filling in the roster for the 2023 playoffs all-disappointment team

It’s the third round of the NHL playoffs, still, thanks to a Dallas Stars team that doesn’t seem to want to quit. With the Golden Knights wobbling and the Panthers resting up, we’re almost at the finish line.

Are you feeling disappointed yet?

Probably. Only three teams remain, which means 29 fan bases are experiencing mandatory misery. Certainly, fans of the 13 playoff teams on the sidelines will be looking for someone to blame.

That’s where we come in. Every year, right around this time, we like to assemble an all-star roster of playoff letdowns. It’s our chance to shine a spotlight on some of those players who were curiously absent from the highlight reels when they were needed most.

As always, we’re not mad, just disappointed. We'll be taking at least one player per playoff team. And we’ll build from the net out, the way all great sad teams do.

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Goaltenders

Andrei Vasilevskiy, Lightning

Goaltending is weird, man. After spending the better part of a decade as the NHL’s most bankable big-game goalie (including three straight years with long playoff runs where he put up a .920 save percentage or better), Vasilevskiy posted the worst numbers of any playoff goalie with at least five starts. I guess that’s just what happens when you’re facing an offensive juggernaut like the playoff Maple Leafs.

Linus Ullmark, Bruins

From the sounds of things, they’ve already engraved his name on the Vezina. Luckily for him, that award is based entirely on the regular season, because Ullmark became the story of the Bruins’ shocking first-round loss. That’s not entirely him – he was hurting, and fatigue was clearly an issue, so Jim Montgomery probably should have swapped in Jeremy Swayman for a game earlier in the series. Instead, the Bruins rode Ullmark until he started to sputter in Game 5, then let him get shelled in Game 6 before benching him with the season on the line.

It didn’t work, and combined with last year’s performance that saw him lose the starter’s job after just two games, it has to create at least a few questions about how reliable Ullmark can be in the postseason.

Stuart Skinner, Oilers

We always have a third goalie on this team, if only because we’ll probably need one. The Oilers may have wished they had a third option too. Skinner was a great story this year, winning the starter’s job as a rookie and even making the all-star team. But he stumbled in the playoffs, especially against the Golden Knights; it got so bad that some Oiler fans were even asking for Jack Campbell to take over. Goaltending wasn’t the only reason they lost, but it was sure one of them, so we'll give him this spot in a narrow decision over Vitek Vanecek.

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