The NHL's Top 10 worst goalies... so far.

The start of the 2025-26 National Hockey League regular season has produced a fair number of surprises thus far and there has been no exception when it comes to goaltending around the league. Through the first month of the season some goaltenders have shined while others who were expected to shine this season have faltered in a major way.

Today I will be looking at the 10 worst goalies in the NHL through the first month of the season, using goals saved above expected as the criteria for these rankings. All of the data used for these rankings was collected by the good folks at MoneyPuck and it is important to remember that this is a relatively small sample size and all of the goalies listed here today have a chance to bounce back.

First let's take a look at our top 10 worst goalies of the season so far:
1. Linus Ullmark -8.0.
2. Sam Montembault -7.6.
3. Dustin Wolf -7.2.
4. Cayden Primeau -6.8.
5. Joel Hofer -5.0.
6. Jordan Binnington -5.0.
7. Leevi Merlinen -4.1.
8. Petr Mrazek -3.7.
9. Calvin Pickard -3.1.
10. Yaroslav Askarovc -2.9.

The big concern here is of course for both the Ottawa Senators and the St. Louis Blues who both find themselves with multiple goaltenders on the list. The Sharks would have been included had we done a top 11 with Alex Nedeljkovic sitting in 11th with a -2.9 goals saved above expected.

The Senators have done surprisingly well to start the season with a record of 6-5-2 despite receiving such poor goaltending while the same can't be said of the Blues who find themselves sitting in last in the NHL's Central Division rankings with a record of 3-7-2.

The situation also isn't great for the Calgary Flames and Montreal Canadiens, both of whom have their starting goaltenders on this list with both Dustin Wolf and Samuel Montembeault near the very top.

The Canadiens have turned to Jacob Dobes who has been outstanding and is currently tied for 3rd best goalie in the entire league in terms of goals saved above expected with +8.2 and as a result they sit at the top of the NHL's Atlantic Division. The Flames on the other hand have had no such recourse and as a result, much like the Blues, they find themselves languishing in the basement of their division.

Again plenty of time to turn things around, but a tough start to be sure for all of the goalies on today's list.