- Carey Price, fifth overall in 2005, is still the last goalie drafted inside the top 10
- Twenty-one drafts later, 11th overall is the highest any netminder has gone
- Read below for every near-miss and why NHL teams keep passing
Twenty-one NHL drafts have come and gone without a single team spending a top-10 pick on a goalie.
Carey Price was the last one. Montreal took him fifth overall in 2005, and nobody has gone that high in the crease since.
The near-misses fit on one hand. Jonathan Bernier went 11th to Los Angeles in 2006, Jack Campbell went 11th to Dallas in 2010, Spencer Knight went 13th to Florida in 2019, Yaroslav Askarov went 11th to Nashville in 2020 and Sebastian Cossa went 15th to Detroit in 2021.
Eleventh overall is the ceiling. That is where the position has topped out for two decades.
This summer kept the run alive. All 32 first-round picks in the 2026 draft went to skaters, and Tobias Trejbal did not come off the board until Calgary took him 42nd overall.
Last year looked like a crack in the wall. Columbus picked Pyotr Andreyanov 20th and San Jose grabbed Joshua Ravensbergen 30th, two goalies in one first round. Neither came close to the top 10.
Front offices have a simple enough reason for it. Goalies take longer to develop than skaters and bust at a higher rate, so teams spend the premium picks on forwards and defensemen and go shopping when they need a starter.
Connor Hellebuyck is the case study. Winnipeg took him 130th overall in the fifth round in 2012, and he turned into the most valuable goalie in the league. He is also the biggest name on the trade market right now.
Price is the counterargument. He gave Montreal 712 games, 361 wins, a .917 save percentage and a 2015 season that brought home the Vezina, the Hart and the Ted Lindsay. His win total remains the franchise record, and the Canadiens put him in the Ring of Honour on Nov. 10.
Take a look at how the whole arc played out:
That makes 21 drafts and counting. The 2027 class gets the next crack at ending the drought.
