Where do the NHL’s active star defensemen and goaltenders rank among the greatest of all-time?

Cale Makar, Victor Hedman, Connor Hellebuyck and Andrei Vasilevskiy (Pictures from Imagn Images)

Credit: Imagn Images

It’s difficult to place how special a player is when we watch them year in and year out.

Perspective is gained with time. And that perspective often eludes us in the moment. Is Victor Hedman as great as Chris Pronger? How significant is Cale Makar’s career body of work after just five seasons? We know Connor Hellebuyck is superb, but is he already one of the 50 best goalies ever?

We’ve got answers. We’re back with Part 2 of our series exploring where the NHL’s top active players fit among the best to ever play their positions. If you missed the first instalment on forwards yesterday, now’s the time to get up to speed on the PPS (the Pidutti Point Share system) methodology and approach.

Today’s menu is serving a fresh catch of the day: where active defensemen and goaltenders rank among the greatest of all-time.

Defensemen

When it comes to defensemen, we don’t have a Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, or Connor McDavid making a splash at the position in a historical sense right now. Makar, Adam Fox, and Quinn Hughes are on an early mission to enter the chat. But what we currently lack in all-time quality is made up for in quantity. The salary cap era has delivered a deep group of blueliners with long runs as elite players.

Top 3️⃣0️⃣

Note: Player age in brackets below are as of October 23, 2024; PPS scores are through the 2023-24 season.

#22. Victor Hedman (Age: 33): Impressively, the Bolts‘ new captain has passed future 2025 Hall of Famer Zdeno Chara. Still 33, the Swedish behemoth is also the youngest of the five active players in the top 30 under PPS. How high can he rise? Hedman remains productive and durable on a competitive team. He’s also under contract through 2029. Even if his days as a perennial Norris threat don’t return and Tampa doesn’t compete for Cups, he can gain 3-5 points on his PPS score per year. And if he continues to age well, a spot around Pronger or Niedermayer is very much in play.

#23. Drew Doughty (34): With his hockey obituary written many times now, Doughty’s resiliently risen to the top 25 at his position. He’s done so absent gaudy offensive totals and without winning a playoff round outside a three-year window. Currently out month-to-month with a fractured ankle, L.A.‘s stabilizing force faces another comeback, leaving much upward movement uncertain as he nears his 35th birthday.

#27: Erik Karlsson (34): Karlsson is a special talent. He has three Norris Trophies. He ranks third in era adjusted points-per-game among 1,000-game club members, trailing only Coffey and Bourque. But he’s held back in PPS by poor defensive impacts and a 67-game playoff résumé. If Karlsson is healthy and productive for the three seasons on his deal, passing Gonchar is a formality, but anything beyond will be a bonus.

#29: Kris Letang (37): Many partial seasons and a high-risk playing style often leave Letang from consideration as a top player of his era. But he belongs. Overcoming serious health scares, the 19-year Penguin is approaching 1,100 games and has earned top-10 Norris love eight times. Under contract through age 41, Letang should at a minimum pass Mark Howe and further establish a viable Hall of Fame case through meaty career totals.

#30: Brent Burns (39): Burns is ninth in era adjusted points by a defenseman and finished first, second, and third in Norris voting in his prime. He’ll be 40 years old in March, so we can’t expect miracles. Hanging in the top 30 at his position is an incredible feat for a singular, charismatic player who beat the odds.

Top 5️⃣0️⃣

#32. Roman Josi (34), PPS — 268: Fresh off a Norris runner-up and with four years left on his contract, Josi is a player with ample runway and game to continue rising. One day, everyone will look back at the season-by-season numbers, the Norris votes, and the totality of his career, and think, ‘How’d we miss that?’

#42: Alex Pietrangelo (34), PPS — 257: A key part of Cups with two franchises, Petro’s future Hall of Fame case will be interesting. Now 17 seasons in, he’ll likely end up ranked 30-something on the PPS list.

#45: Cale Makar (25), PPS — 251: Incredible, really. Just five seasons into his career, Makar isn’t Orr. But his points-per-game (1.08), Calder, Smythe, and four Norris finalist nods have him on a rarified trajectory. Makar only has five seasons registered of the seven-best that make up his Peak score, so he should easily be in the 280s in PPS — if not flirting with 300 — by 2026. Could he wind up in the top 10 one day?

#47: John Carlson (34), PPS — 247: Carlson’s been a consistently productive player for a long time. His work seems unfairly lost amidst the eight contemporaries above, but he’s secured an impressive top-50 rank.

Just Missed: #56. Ryan Suter
Keep an Eye On: #79. Adam Fox; #105. Charlie McAvoy; #160. Quinn Hughes

Goaltenders

Goaltending is a difficult position to gauge for a few reasons. From a historical perspective, shots weren’t tracked until the mid-1950s, so you’ve got 50 years of goalies with incomplete or no save percentage data. Starting workloads have also declined in recent seasons. And shot quality — a valuable data point given not all shots are created equally — is a relatively new creation that isn’t yet deployed in PPS. While it didn’t prevent cap era workhorses Roberto Luongo or Henrik Lundqvist from reaching the top 20, like with pitchers in baseball, we may need to one day shift our expectations (and this model) for goalies.

Top 3️⃣0️⃣

#26. Marc-Andre Fleury (39): Fleury’s fun, winding, and decorated career is the sum of its parts. My own High Noon metric identifies that at no point in his 21 seasons was he above #7 in the NHL’s goalie hierarchy. But playing so consistently long as an average to above-average goaltender is what makes Fleury special. His playoff bonus (+25) really boosts his PPS score, the product of five trips to the Finals and a tie for third in career playoff wins (92). In a three-goalie crease on his farewell tour in Minnesota, Fleury will either stay put at #26 or inch past fellow dynamic stopper Grant Fuhr.

Top 5️⃣0️⃣

#34. Sergei Bobrovsky (36), PPS — 291: This may seem low for a durable goalie with two Vezinas and a Cup ring, but Bob’s career mixed in some down years. While he’s now 36, he was a Vezina finalist this past season. A couple more solid years and playoff runs will launch him into top 30 of PPS.

#37: Andrei Vasilevskiy (30), PPS — 289: Coming off major surgery, Tampa’s athletic backstop showed some cracks last year. But we have to remember that Vasilevskiy’s PPS score to date was achieved exclusively in his 20s. Another five years of average, healthy starting goaltending and Big Cat could carve out a Lundqvist-like path, effectively making him the best goalie to debut since the mid-2000s.

#46: Connor Hellebuyck (31), PPS — 274: Hellebuyck has been the NHL’s best combination of excellence and durability in goal the last two years — and perhaps the last seven. Why does he trail Vasilevskiy by 15? It’s the playoffs, man. With two Cups, a Smythe, and 115 post-season appearances, Vasi leads Helly 29-6 in playoff bonus! At the peak of his powers, the Jets‘ rock should continue to soar upward. Some low-hanging fruit to rise quickly? Win either the 4 Nations Faceoff or 2026 Olympic gold as U.S.A.’s starter — a +10 bonus for a best-on-best title. Or build up his playoff bonus through deep runs (or a surprise Cup).

Just Missed: #51. Semyon Varlamov; #55. Jonathan Quick
Keep an Eye On: #93. Juuse Saros; #113. Igor Shesterkin

A quick note on… Quick. The public understandably sees a proven winner with three Cups, an acrobatic style, two Jennings Trophies, and nearly 400 wins. PPS sees a goalie with a league-average career save percentage on consistently great defensive teams, just two elite seasons, limited Vezina votes, and two Cups (he didn’t play one playoff minute in Vegas). Beyond wins, team awards, and style, it’s difficult to see Quick as a top 50 goalie. Whether you see Tom Barrasso (like the public) or Chris Osgood (like the system), the answer may lie in between.

Follow @AdjustedHockey on X; visit www.adjustedhockey.com

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