What makes Andrei Vasilevskiy the best clutch goalie alive?

The Tampa Bay Lightning never subbed out their goaltender in Round 1 of the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs. Not in a literal sense, at least. Metaphysically, though: we could pinpoint the moment where Ordinary Andrei Vasilevskiy packed up his belongings, punched the clock and handed control of the Lightning net to Clutch Andrei Vasilevskiy. It was like an entirely different goaltender took over.

The Toronto Maple Leafs had the Lightning almost dead to rights, up 3-2 in the series, up 3-2 in Game 6 with 11 minutes to play. And then Vasilevskiy, who had allowed an uncharacteristic three or more goals in six straight contests, decided enough was enough. He held the Lightning in Game 6, carried them through an overtime in which they were outshot, helped them win that game and outplayed Toronto netminder Jack Campbell in Game 7. Against the Florida Panthers in Round 2? No contest. Vasilevskiy allowed just three goals in the four-game sweep. Since that imaginary switch flicked in Round 1, from the Game 6 overtime period onward, Vasilevskiy has stopped 190 of 194 shots, good for a .979 save percentage.

As astounding as that stat is, we barely tend to blink at it, as this is the standard he’s established so far in his career. Since the start of the 2019-20 playoffs, in series-clinching games, he’s posted a 0.77 goals-against average, .974 save percentage and six shutouts. Still just 27 and already second among active goalies in playoff wins, he’s rapidly climbing the list of the best clutch goalies in NHL history, deserving mention alongside the likes of Hall of Famers like Patrick Roy, Grant Fuhr, Martin Brodeur and Bernie Parent, Game 7 specialist Henrik Lundqvist and a special tier of goaltenders who didn’t reach the Hall of Fame but were known to deliver in clutch moments, like Jean-Sebastien Giguere, Mike Vernon and Mike Richter.

So how does Vasilevskiy do it? Can a goaltender develop the ability to just “play differently” when the stakes matter most?

For Parent, who won consecutive Conn Smythe Trophies in the Philadelphia Flyers’ Cup runs in 1974 and 1975, flipping the mental “switch” was about remembering to return to his system, “push everything aside and be 100 percent focused on the game.” When he was in the zone, he tells Daily Faceoff, he was in constant communication with his defense corps during the play, helping them read threats from forecheckers. Parent was immersed.

Richter, who won back-to-back Game 7s to lead the New York Rangers to a Stanley Cup in 1994, viewed the clutch mentality as something he could sharpen throughout a season, something that peaked in the playoffs when every teammate was buying in and making sacrifices to win. He sees it in the current version of the Rangers, who have won five straight elimination games this spring.

“When everybody on your team is buying in, in the same manner, and the intensity is cranked up, you’re hyper aware of the discipline that’s required to be successful, the appropriate place to be as a player at all times, but across 82-game seasons it’s hard to do that,” Richter told Daily Faceoff. “It’s what you try to do every day in practice, it’s what you apply every game, but you want to be, and you are, a better player come April, May and June than you are in September. You’re battle tested. You’ve honed this focus. It’s like a muscle. Your mental fitness increases over the course of a season. And come playoff time is when you’re at your best, and you have the capacity to do it, and it’s awesome. This is what you dream of when you’re playing as a little kid in the driveway: Game 7, overtime, breakaway.”

Giguere finds the clutch mentality hard to explain – if it was easy to explain, many more goalies could have it, after all. His 2002-03 Conn Smythe Trophy run, in which he posted a .945 save percentage and five shutouts while taking the underdog Anaheim Ducks to Game 7 of the final, is the stuff of legend. He finished the job by backstopping Anaheim to a Cup in 2006-07 and ended his career with a 2.08 GAA and .925 SV% in postseason play, vastly better than his regular-season numbers. Did he have an ability to activate God Mode when he needed to in the playoffs?

“I don’t think it’s a switch where you tell yourself, ‘I’m going to turn on the switch.’ ” he told Daily Faceoff. “It’s something that just naturally happens. When the moment is big, it’s the X-factor, and some guys have it more than others.”

While he doesn’t feel he can quantify Vasilevskiy’s X-factor, Giguere sees it, and he believes a lot of it comes from Vasilevskiy’s athleticism. Since he’s in such good shape, he’s able to stay consistent, game after game after game, deep into series, rarely looking tired, outlasting his counterpart in the other net.

“His work ethic is second to none,” Giguere said. “You can tell. You rarely catch him off guard. In the first round it was a little bit surprising because you finally thought that he was human and that he was tired and that maybe he just didn’t have it in him. As the round went on, you could see his game just getting better and better, and at the key moment he was unbeatable. And now that he has his confidence back, in the second round, there was nothing the Panthers could do. I wouldn’t want to be the team that plays against him. It’s just such a tall ask.”

Parent, a cerebral goaltender known for his understanding of angles, was constantly analyzing his defensemen when they were engaging attackers. As he said this week, he could predict where a shot was going based on the trajectory at which his defenseman engaged a shooter. Watching ‘Vasy,’ Parent sees something similar.

“This guy has tremendous anticipation, where the play is going to go, where the shots are going to go,” Parent said, adding that he believes a key for Vasilevskiy is that he doesn’t go down too early and is thus free to move more fluidly when reacting to danger.

Richter sees Vasilevskiy’s dominant trait as resiliency and points to the stats that prove it. Following any playoff loss since 2019-20, Vasilevskiy is 17-0 with a 1.42 GAA, .947 SV% and five shutouts.

“Grant Fuhr was phenomenal when the Oilers were winning their Cups: when he had a bad game, he came back with a great one. If he missed a puck he might’ve wanted to have, he’s going to make a save he shouldn’t have,” Richter said. “And Vasilevskiy seems to do that.”

When ‘The Big Cat’ gets into a groove, the picture of focus, he’s as tough to solve as any goaltender of his generation. His counterpart in the Eastern Conference final, Igor Shesterkin, is under pressure to be close to perfect. Once Clutch Vasilevskiy is activated, it’s tough to put him back into the box.

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What makes Andrei Vasilevskiy the best clutch goalie alive?

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