Vezina Trophy Winners (NHL's Best Goaltender)

Jacques Plante holds the record for the most Vezina Trophies, with seven, won between 1956 and 1969. No goaltender has matched that total, and Plante’s run for the great Montreal Canadiens teams of the era set a bar for netminding excellence that only Bill Durnan and Dominik Hasek, both on six, have approached.

The Vezina Trophy is the NHL’s award for its best goaltender, decided since 1982 by a vote of the league’s general managers. The most recent winner is Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets, who took the 2024 award. Here is the list of recent winners, the all-time multiple winners, and how the award changed from a team statistic into a personal honor. Figures are current through the 2024 season.

Recent Vezina Trophy winners

The table lists the NHL’s best goaltender for each of the most recent seasons.

The 2025 Vezina Trophy is presented at the end of that season, as it is every year.

The record holder: Jacques Plante and seven trophies

Plante won six of his seven Vezinas in the Plante-era Canadiens dynasty of the late 1950s, then added a seventh in 1969 with St. Louis, splitting duties with Glenn Hall. He is remembered as much for innovation as for the trophies: Plante popularized the goalie mask and roamed to play the puck behind his net, changing how the position is played.

Because the pre-1982 Vezina went to the goalie on the lowest-scoring team, Plante’s totals were tied to Montreal’s dominance as well as his own brilliance. The gap to the modern era is why his seven still tops the list more than 50 years later.

Every multiple Vezina winner

The goaltenders with the most Vezina Trophies:

Bill Durnan won six in a seven-year window in the 1940s, all for Montreal. Dominik Hasek’s six with Buffalo in the 1990s came under the modern voting system, arguably making his the most impressive haul because he won as the outright best goalie in the league rather than the beneficiary of a strong defense. Ken Dryden’s five and Martin Brodeur’s four anchor the Montreal and New Jersey dynasties they backstopped.

How the Vezina changed in 1982

For most of its history the Vezina was a team statistic in disguise. From 1927 to 1981 it went automatically to the goaltender or goaltenders on the team that allowed the fewest goals across the season, which meant it often rewarded the defense in front of the netminder as much as the netminder himself. That is why some winners shared it, and why the totals of Plante and Durnan are tied to great defensive teams.

In 1982 the league split off a separate honor: the Vezina became a vote by general managers for the single best goaltender, and the William M. Jennings Trophy took over the fewest-goals-allowed function. Every winner since — from Hasek to Hellebuyck — earned it as a judgment of individual play.

The active chase

Connor Hellebuyck leads the current generation with two Vezinas, in 2020 and 2024, and remains among the most consistent goalies in the league. Andrei Vasilevskiy, Igor Shesterkin and Sergei Bobrovsky have all won it too, but no active goaltender is within range of Plante’s seven or even Hasek’s six.

For more on the players in front of these goalies, see where the league’s snipers rank on our most goals in NHL history leaderboard, or the playmakers on most assists in NHL history. Jacques Plante’s seven Vezinas have led the list since 1969, and no goaltender has come closer than six.