The ultimate team trophy may have eluded the Tampa Bay Lightning this season, but they are racking up the individual accolades. First, it was Jon Cooper finally nabbing a Jack Adams, now it’s Andrei Vasilevskiy returning back to the top of goaltender mountain as the NHL general managers voted him the “goaltender adjudged to be the best at his position” aka the Vezina Trophy winner.
It is his second Vezina, having won the award following the 2018-19 season, and the sixth time he’s been a finalist. That matches Dominik Hasek and trails only Patrick Roy (seven times) and Martin Brodeur (nine times). Vasilevskiy joins Connor Hellebuyck (three times) and Sergei Bobrovsky (twice) as multi-Vezina winners among current players.
The 31-year-old led the league in wins with 39 while posting 42 quality starts out of his 58 appearances. He finished 6th in save percentage (.911), 2nd in goals against (2.31), 4th in minutes played (3430:45), and 4th in goals saved above expected (39.93). Despite spending the third most time shorthanded, he had a .900 SV% on the penalty kill. The two players with a higher save percentage (Jesper Wallstedt and Scott Wedgewood) spent over 100 fewer minutes shorthanded. Vasilevskiy helped bail his penalty killers out to a tune of 18.28 (4th in the league) GSAx while the Lightning were down.
The numbers are super nice, but honestly we could just post this highlight and it would sew up his case for the award.
We’ll also take a moment to point out that this is a regular season award. So, his post season numbers didn’t factor into the voting. Yeah, we’ll leave it at that (other than saying his counting numbers didn’t reflect how well he played in the series against Montreal).
The Lightning netminder was the heavy betting favorite towards the end of the season with odds as low as -1650 through some betting venues. The final voting tallies reflected that as he received 17 of the 31 first place votes, finishing with a 114 to 51 point edge over second-place Ilya Sorokin.
Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy has won the Vezina Trophy. Dallas’ Jake Oettinger finished 8th by receiving one second place vote. Former Star Scott Wedgewood finished 5th in the voting, including 2 first place votes. #TexasHockey
— Owen Newkirk (@owennewkirk.bsky.social) June 6, 2026 at 11:39 AM
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Vasilevskiy’s best stretch of the season mirrored the Lightning’s dominating run of play. From December 20th to February 5th, Vasilevskiy posted a 16-0-1 record with a .923 SV%, 1.90 GAA, and 16.33 GSAx. Like the rest of the team, it was a bit of a struggle after the Olympic Break as his numbers slid to .899, 2.67, and 6.74. He still managed to post a 12-8-1 record. By that time, Vasilevskiy pretty much had the award sewn up, and his top competition (Sorokin) faltered down the stretch as well.
Along the way, Vasilevskiy knocked out a couple of career milestones, including his 350th career win. He also moved up to 21st all time in the league with 370. Andy Moog (372) and John Vanbiesbrouck (374) are next up on his hit list. With another typical Vasilevskiy season next year, he could become the fastest goaltender to 400 wins. Currently Bobrovsky holds the record by doing it in 707 career games, achieving the feat in 2024. Vasilevskiy enters next season with 598 career games played.
As teams have been doing for the last few years with these awards, the Lightning and the league surprised Vasilevskiy with the award. Instead of doing it at a barbecue or ribbon-cutting ceremony, the Lightning did it in a parking lot. With the police involved.
