Who are the Vezina Trophy frontrunners this season? 

Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck has taken home the last two Vezina Trophies as the top goaltender in the NHL. Last year, he even earned the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player.

Hellebuyck was off to another strong start this year, but a minor knee surgery has kept him out of action and will continue to do so for another few weeks, opening the door to the possibility of a new winner this season.

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed the early state of the Vezina Trophy race as several goalies are starting to separate themselves.

Tyler Yaremchuk: I think the Vezina race is shaping up to be really interesting. A month ago it kind of felt like with Connor Hellebuyck’s hot start to the year there might be a little bit of a cheeky Hellebuyck or [Logan] Thompson debate at the end of the year, but it was Connor Hellebuyck’s to lose. And now with the injury to the Jets’ superstar goalie, this thing is maybe more wide open than we thought. If you were to give out the Vezina right now, I think there’s a handful of players who would be in the conversation… I want you to fortune teller mode. I want you to tell me at the end of the season out of all the guys who are in the conversation right now… Who are the three goalies that you think have legitimate staying power when it comes to this Vezina conversation?

Carter Hutton: Honestly, picking right now is harder in my personal opinion just because there’s been so many great stories… Who am I going to tell you is going to be good at the end of the year? Well, it’s going to be the best goalies… I truthfully think right now, this year and the way this team is built and the way the Atlantic is, Andrei Vasilevskiy is the biggest bang for my buck… Then I think it’s going to be him and Logan Thompson… And there’s a lot of guys that I love. Swayman’s been awesome. Spencer Knight.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…