Tony Deangelo slams NHL over Vezina Trophy winner.

On Saturday morning, the National Hockey League officially announced the winner of the Vezina Trophy as the NHL's best goaltender for the 2025-26 regular season, with Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy winning the award for the second time in his career.

The award is voted on annually by the 32 general managers in the NHL which seems like a pretty fair system, but inevitably there is always some debate about whether or not the right man won.

This time that debate is coming from directly within the NHL itself with pending unrestricted free agent defenseman Tony DeAngelo calling out today's decision just moments after it was announced.

DeAngelo spent last season as a member of the New York Islanders, appearing in 76 games and scoring 5 goals and adding 30 assists for 35 points on the season, so he got an up close and personal look at one of the finalists for this year's award, Islanders goaltender Ilya Sorokin. DeAngelo quickly took to social media to express his displeasure at Sorokin being snubbed after Vasilevskiy was announced as the winner.

"Vasy is a great goalie & well deserving of a Vezina every year but there’s no way Roky wasn’t the best goalie in the NHL this season," wrote DeAngelo.

Looking at the baseline numbers you would be hard pressed to make the case for DeAngelo here. Vasilevskiy appeared in more games (58) compared to Sorokin (55) and had better numbers in terms of save percentage .912 and goals against average 2.27 when compared to Sorokin who had a save percentage of .906 and a goals against average of 2.68. Where Sorokin did outperform Vasilevskiy this season however was against high danger shots, with Vasilevskiy recording a .844 save percentage and Sorokin a .864 save percentage against the most dangerous shots they face. Sorokin's high danger save percentage was in fact the highest in the NHL this season among goaltenders who played at least 25 games.

That being said both men play on different teams and in different systems, so the eye test also goes a long way here.

Does DeAngelo have a claim? Is he right for sticking up for his former teammate? Or did the right man win the award? Let me know what you think in the comments.