Photo by Lisa Gansky from New York, NY, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
Scott Wedgewood
Colorado Avalanche Goaltender #41
A career backup who, at thirty-three, posted the best save percentage of any goaltender in this edition.
| Season | GP | W | L | OTL | GA | GAA | SO | SA | SV% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | 45 | 31 | 6 | 6 | 86 | 2.02 | 4 | 1093 | .921 |
| Career | 199 | 93 | 60 | 30 | 499 | 2.68 | 12 | 5497 | .909 |
Last Season
Forty-five games, a .921 save percentage, a 2.02 goals-against average and four shutouts, going 31-6-6. Against a career .909 across 199 games, that is a season out of nowhere.
The Physical Game
Six-two, which is ordinary now, and he plays a compact, technical game — square, quiet, and economical rather than athletic. He does not fight the puck and he does not scramble unless the play forces him to.
The honest context matters: he played behind the best defensive team in this edition, one whose top four defencemen were all plus-32 or better. A 2.02 goals-against average is a team number as much as a goaltender’s.
The save percentage is harder to explain away, and it is what makes last season more than a mirage.
The Mental Game
Eight organisations and a decade of being the man who plays when somebody else is hurt. That requires a temperament, and his is even to the point of being unremarkable — no visible reaction to a bad goal, no visible reaction to a good run.
The Intangibles
He had never played more than thirty-one games in a season before this one and had never been better than league-average. Then at thirty-three he was, briefly, the best goaltender in the league by rate.
The projection is the difficult part. Nothing in the previous decade suggests this repeats; nothing in the season itself suggests it was an accident either. A club with a genuine 1B behind him is in a comfortable position to find out.