In the final edition of previewing each division’s best goalies ahead of the 2025-26 season, we get to the Pacific, which has the weakest field thus far.
In my view, the Pacific is home to many problem-goalies. Netminders that teams are stuck with and would upgrade if only they could.
Still, there’s a handful of elite ones who may have a shot at contending for this year’s Vezina Trophy. Here are the three goalies with the best odds to win the award for the league’s best tendie as of October 7.
Dustin Wolf, Flames (+1800)
Calgary’s Dustin Wolf has the sixth-best odds to win the Vezina Trophy right now.
After starting 53 games in his first season as the Flames’ full-time goaltender, Wolf finished second in the Calder Trophy voting for rookie of the year and finished in eighth place in the Vezina voting.
Through those 53 games, Wolf had a 2.64 GAA and a .910 save percentage. He also had a 29-16-8 record in those games.
It’s been a long road to finally get to the NHL for Wolf, who Calgary drafted in the seventh round of the 2019 entry-level draft. After that, he played two more seasons in Canada’s WHL junior league.
He then spent two years in the AHL before making his NHL debut with the Flames. Wolf finally won the full-time job when Calgary’s previous starter, Jacob Markström, was traded to the Devils in July 2024.
Ahead of this season, Wolf is one of the stronger goalies in the Western Conference and probably the best goalie in the Pacific Division.
Darcy Kuemper, Kings (+3000)
In his first season back in Los Angeles last year, Darcy Kuemper was everything the Kings could have asked for and more.
He had a career-best 2.02 GAA and a .921 save percentage. In his 50 games started, Kuemper had a 31-11-7 record. For his performance, the league’s general managers voted him into a third-place finish in the 2024-25 Vezina voting.
That was the highest Vezina finish in Kuemper’s 13-year NHL career.
The 35-year-old enters this season with an opportunity to help Los Angeles continue it’s streak of making the playoffs and, hopefully, get past the first round for the first time since their Stanley Cup winning season in 2014.
As for Vezina contention, I don’t see Kuemper finishing any better this year than he did last year unless the Kings make the run at a Division title.
Lukáš Dostál, Ducks (+3500)
In his second season of full-time action in the NHL last year, the 25-year-old Lukáš Dostál had a solid season for the Ducks.
He finished the year with a 3.10 GAA and a .903 save percentage alongside a 23-23-7 record in his 49 games started.
Dostál’s performance wasn’t strong enough for Anaheim to make the playoffs, or much noise at all in the Pacific Division. The Ducks finished in sixth place in the division with a 35-37-10 record.
Anaheim has not made the playoffs since 2018.
I don’t view Dostál as a strong contender for the Vezina given what he’s shown so far in his career. There’d have to be some major improvement over the next few years for him to become a contender.
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