As was expected, Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy ran away with the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s best goaltender, announced by the league on Saturday.
Vasilevskiy finished with 114 points in the voting by NHL general managers, over twice as many as the second-place finisher, the New York Islanders’ Ilya Sorokin (51 points).
Bruins netminder Jeremy Swayman, in his first time as a finalist, came in third with 46 points. Swayman received two first-place votes. He was thankful to be in top consideration for the award, though, and said back in late April that “it’s a lifelong dream of mine and to finally be in the conversation, it’s an incredible honor.”
Vasilevskiy, who won the award once before (in 2018-19) and been a finalist six times, finished with 39 wins, a .912 save percentage and 2.31 goals-against average.
Widely regarded as the main reason the Bruins made the playoffs after a 100-point season despite allowing more high-danger chances than most playoff teams, the 27-year-old Swayman finished the season with a 31-18-4 record, a 2.71 GAA and .908 save percentage.
It was a big bounce-back season for Swayman, who signed an eight-year, $66 million deal prior to a subpar 2024-25 campaign, in which he posted a 22-9-7 record with career-worst marks in GAA (3.11) and save percentage (.892).
“It was a whirlwind of a year and half on and off the ice and I think it’s really structured out to be an incredible story and the growth that has come from it internally and also with the team, too, is pretty spectacular,” Swayman said. “I’m so blessed. Truthfully, I’m just so grateful for the journey that I’ve been on and mindset I have and the outlook I have on life and on hockey has completely shifted. It was worth the adversity, I’d say, and it’s definitely shifted my entire life to a different level.”
Vasilevskiy got 17 of the 32 first-place votes while Sorokin got eight. Washington’s Logan Thompson and Colorado’s Scott Wedgewood both got two first-place votes.