Fantasy hockey goalie starts through week 3: who plays next

The number that matters two weeks in

Through games of Oct 13, 13 of the NHL's 32 teams have handed one goalie 80% or more of their starts. Eleven are close to an even split, leader at 60% or less. The other eight sit in between.

That gap is the first thing to check before trusting a goalie for fantasy starts. A team in the 80%-plus group is close to a must-start crease once that goalie is healthy. A team near 50/50 is not safe to roster as a single starter yet, no matter how good either goalie's save percentage looks after five games.

The sample is still short: teams have played 5 to 8 games. A hot week can flip a share number fast, and this table will look different by Thanksgiving.

Every team's starts so far

Source: NHL per-game starter logs through Oct 13 2026, via the Parlae fantasy hockey board, read Oct 14 2026.

The locked-in group

Eleven teams have a goalie at 83% or higher: Wallstedt in Minnesota, Dostal in Anaheim, Swayman in Boston, Blackwood in Colorado, Oettinger in Dallas, Gibson in Detroit, Saros in Nashville, Sorokin on Long Island, Askarov in San Jose, Vasilevskiy in Tampa Bay, and Thompson in Washington. Each has started 5 of his team's 6 logged games, or 6 of 7 for Wallstedt, with every backup appearance a single spot start. Levi in Edmonton and Kuemper in Los Angeles sit one tick back at 80%.

Two of those names are not last season's incumbent. Edmonton's crease belonged to Calvin Pickard through most of 2025-26; Devon Levi has taken 4 of the team's first 5 starts instead. Minnesota's Wallstedt has pushed his share to the highest number in the league in his first extended run as a number one.

The true timeshares

Two teams are splitting starts exactly down the middle. Philadelphia has Dan Vladar and Joseph Woll at 4 starts apiece. Toronto has Sergei Bobrovsky and Anthony Stolarz at 3 each, a sharp change from last season, when Bobrovsky alone started 51 of Toronto's 82 games. Seven more teams sit at 57%, a lean but not a settled job: Buffalo (Luukkonen over Ellis), Carolina (Kochetkov over Bussi), the Rangers (Shesterkin over Garand), Pittsburgh (Silovs over Murashov), Seattle (Daccord over Grubauer), Vancouver (Lankinen over Merilainen), and Vegas (Hart over Hill). None of these eleven teams is a safe single-goalie roster yet; check the confirmed starter before setting a lineup in any of them.

This week's games

No team has a back-to-back in the rest of NHL week 3 (Oct 14-18), so a start Wednesday or Thursday does not cost a goalie his next game this week. Thirty of the 32 teams play twice more; Anaheim and Los Angeles play once more, Thursday Oct 16.

For the 13 teams with a goalie at 80% or higher, both remaining games project to the same name absent an injury, since none of those backups has started more than a single game all season. For the eleven near-even teams, expect the two remaining games to go to different goalies more often than not; Toronto and Philadelphia have alternated starts almost every time out. Full team schedules are in the light nights and schedule guide; how often one goalie covers a back-to-back later in the season is in the goalie back-to-backs guide.

What to do with this

1. Roster the 80%-plus group with confidence. Wallstedt, Dostal, Swayman, Blackwood, Oettinger, Gibson, Saros, Sorokin, Askarov, Vasilevskiy, Thompson, Levi and Kuemper have each taken all but one of their team's starts. Compare their rest-of-season value on the goalie rankings.
2. Stream, don't commit, in the 11 timeshare teams. Philadelphia, Toronto, Buffalo, Carolina, the Rangers, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Vancouver and Vegas have not settled a number one. Check the day's confirmed starter on the start/sit page before locking a goalie from any of them into a lineup.
3. Watch Edmonton and Minnesota for role changes. Levi and Wallstedt have already overtaken last season's incumbents. If a waiver-wire goalie is behind one of them on the depth chart rather than ahead, check the waiver wire page before adding him.
4. Recheck this table after this week's games. Every share number here comes from 5 to 8 games. Two more starts for a backup can move a team from "locked in" to "watch it."