2026 NHL Draft: Top Five Goalies Include Trejbal, Boettiger And Knowling

The NHL draft is next up on the schedule as the Carolina Hurricanes celebrate their Stanley Cup win.

This week, we'll rank the top five NHL draft prospects at each position, starting in net, where one player can change the outcome of any game.

Some teams just seem to have an endless pipeline of strong goalies. The Montreal Canadiens and New York Rangers seem to replace one elite goaltender with an up-and-comer who ends up being nearly as good or better. Other teams, such as the Edmonton Oilers, can't seem to figure out the position.

This year's goalie class is viewed as good but not great. There isn't an elite, standout prospect, but there do seem to be plenty of netminders that people across the hockey world like.

Let's look at the top five netminders in this year's class and some of the others who could find their way into the NHL in the years to come.

Trejbal put together a wildly impressive season in the USHL. His 30-9-3 record and .916 save percentage helped Youngstown finish with the best regular season in the league. As a rookie in the USHL, he was named the goalie of the year, and it didn't seem particularly close.

The biggest reason to like Trejbal as an NHL prospect is that he doesn't really have a weakness in his game. He seems to be above average across the board, even if there isn't one area where he is elite. He's a smart netminder who plays a technical game. He's the most certain of any netminder in the class to make it to the NHL, and with excellent physical tools, good size and a technically precise game, he could be quite a solid NHL netminder.

Possibly the smoothest-skating goalie in the class, Borichev relies on his mobility in the crease to make a play on the puck, consistently finding a way to get square to the shooter. He's so crisp on his feet that if he can iron out some of the kinks in his game from a technical point of view, he has the potential to make things look relatively easy at the next level.

Most of what Borichev must work on is fairly fixable. He has the mobility and athleticism to be a very good goalie, and he showed that with Yaroslavl in Russia. In nearly every viewing this year, he fairly consistently made the saves he should be making and always found a way to make an extraordinary save or two. Borichev might just be the next Russian netminder to become an impact player at the NHL level.

Boettiger came into his draft year viewed by many as the potential top netminder in the class.

After playing for the USA Hockey National Team Development Program last year, Boettiger took a bit of time to adjust to playing in the CHL, but he really seemed to hit his stride in the latter two-thirds of the season.

His play-reading and intelligence were immediately noticeable, so when his technical game caught up, he became one of the WHL's better netminders.

The 6-foot-1 goalie can be exploited up high at times, and he doesn't have the quickest hands. He does get himself square to shooters and challenges them well by staying atop his crease, but he can let a goal by him from time to time that he probably should have had.

With a really solid base of skating, intelligence and positional play, Boettiger is a project well worth taking on in the early to mid-third round.

Sometimes in net, you need to find the best athlete. That's what Carter Casey is among this year's goalie crop.

With high-end skating, elite reactionary play and impressive movement, Casey is consistently one of the most entertaining netminders in the class. He could be a really great NHL netminder if he could round out his game technically just a little bit more.

Sometimes, NHL prospects are like a ball of clay that NHL teams want to mold and develop. Casey is that ball of clay.

He stepped into the Waterloo Black Hawks lineup late last year out of high school and helped lead them to a Clark Cup final in the USHL. This year, he split the net in Medicine Hat and probably should have had a bit more of a runway in the crease.

He's a bit of a high-risk, high-reward guy, but if a team drafts him in the third or fourth round, it could have a gem on its hands.

The NTDP starting netminder has the size NHL teams want at 6-foot-5, and he's quick enough on his feet to make it hard to get an angle on him.

He's been hyped up for some time now, but for every solid performance that he's had on a big stage, he's put up a stinker to match.

Knowling should get a long leash, though, so that he can get into the AHL, play plenty of games and earn an NHL look later on.

He must elevate everything in his game just a bit to get to where he needs to be, though. He doesn't always fight through a screen, which will only become a bigger problem as he climbs the hockey ladder. If Knowling can get just a bit quicker, work a bit harder to regain his vision of the puck and just get a bit better at the little aspects of the game, he could be a very solid goalie at the NHL level, even if he never reaches bona fide starter status.

At 6-foot-7, the Czech netminder is a beast in the crease. NHL teams love the size, and he played well with a starter's workload in the WHL.

An overager who is elite on his feet and his eyes track play with the best in the class. The Dominican-Slovak netminder isn’t the most athletic but he’s proven to be more than capable.

Although he hasn’t played since late November, Rybkin is one of the most intriguing netminders in the class because he moves extremely well for a netminder who stands 6-foot-7.

A tad bit small at just 6-foot-1 but the skating and play tracking is high end. He is a player that has all of the athletic tools you want from a netminder, he just needs to refine his technique a bit.

Undersized, but he's been unreal in major junior, winning OHL and CHL goaltender of the year honors and putting up impressive numbers in his first year in the league.

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