This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Vitek Vanecek

Thirty-three wins on 25.6 shots a night, the fifth-lightest workload of any goaltender who played thirty games.

Season	Team	GP	W	L	OTL	GA	GAA	SO	SA	SV%

2020-21	WSH	37	21	10	4	95	2.69	2	1031	.908
2021-22	WSH	42	20	12	6	103	2.67	4	1117	.908
2022-23	NJD	52	33	11	4	119	2.45	3	1333	.911
2023-24 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	131	74	33	14	317	2.59	9	3481	.909

This Season So Far

The 2023-24 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

33-11-4 in 52 games, .9107, 2.45, three shutouts on 1,333 shots.

Thirty-three wins is tied for seventh in the league and he did it in fewer games than anyone else in that group.

1,333 shots across 52 appearances is 25.6 a night — the fifth-lightest workload among the forty-two goaltenders who played thirty games. New Jersey finished fourth in the league in five-on-five shot-attempt share, and what arrived in front of him arrived thinly.

The .9107 is fifteenth of those forty-two, against a median of .9029. That is a genuinely above-average save percentage and it is not what the win total suggests. New Jersey’s goaltending was worth plus-5.5 goals on the season, eleventh in the league, which is the honest size of the contribution.

Three seasons, 131 games, a 2.59 career goals-against average.

The Finesse Game

6-2 and 184, which is ordinary for the position now and on the small side of it.

He plays a controlled, positionally quiet game: square early, minimal movement, and he lets the puck hit him rather than reaching for it. On a club that concedes as little as this one does, that is the correct style — the danger in New Jersey’s games is the sudden chance off a turnover, not the sustained siege.

The rebounds are the part to watch. He steers pucks to the corner well from the ordinary shot and gets caught giving up the second one when he has had to move laterally.

Three shutouts in fifty-two games in front of the ninth-best defensive record in the league is a low count, and it is the counting shadow of the same thing.

The Intangibles

Thirty-ninth overall in 2014 to Washington, three seasons of splitting a net there, and a trade that made him a number one for the first time at twenty-seven.

The career line is 131 games and a 2.59 goals-against average, all of it behind clubs that defend well.

The question the file cannot answer is the one that matters in April. He has never faced thirty-five shots a night for two weeks running, and nothing in three seasons of a light workload tells you what happens when he does.

What kind of player

The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.

a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
ordinaryraised, and called ordinary

Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.

plays-deepa strength· takes the net away by occupying it
“He plays a controlled, positionally quiet game: square early, minimal movement, and he lets the puck hit him rather than reaching for it.”
rebound-controlpresent and ordinary· where the second chance ends up
“He steers pucks to the corner well from the ordinary shot and gets caught giving up the second one when he has had to move laterally.”