The lineage of the Vezina Trophy [which has had three different phases – First awarded in 1927 to George Hainsworth of the Montreal Canadiens, it served as a memorial to Georges Vezina also of Montreal, who collapsed during a game in 1925, was subsequently diagnosed with tuberculosis, and passed away from complications of the disease in 1926 and was given to the best overall NHL goaltender up until 1946 wherein the standards were clarified and it was given to the goaltender who played the most games for the team that allowed the fewest goals before reverting to a best goaltender award in 1981, with the William M. Jennings Trophy replacing the previous Vezina incarnation for the fewest-goals-against accolade] has historically been very Canadian. That said, the United States and Europe have made an impact on the award’s history, especially in approximately the last decade and a half, but with the latter really first rising to prominence when Czech hockey icon Dominik Hasek started his near monopoly on the award in the 1990’s. Let us examine the history of the award’s recipients that were born and trained in Europe, starting with the first instance of this in 1985 and culminating in the most recent, occurring in 2023.

Pelle Lindbergh (Sweden, Philadelphia Flyers, 1985)

The very first European recipient of the Vezina Trophy was a Swede, who grew up wanting to play for the Philadelphia Flyers and was able to achieve that dream and had a fair amount of success in the handful of years that he played on Broad Street. Lindbergh’s magnum opus in the NHL came in his final full season, with him posting a 40-17-7, a GAA of 3.02, and a save percentage of .899 to backstop the Flyers to the best record in the league (this was the final season prior to the introduction of the Presidents’ Trophy). His individual numbers would be considered putrid in a contemporary setting, but it is worth noting that, in an era of extremely heavy offense, these were a good deal superior to that season’s league averages, which were 3.79 and .875, respectively. In the postseason, he backstopped the team to a Stanley Cup finals appearance, though they lost in five games to the dynastic Edmonton Oilers (with Lindbergh sitting out injured in the final game). For his stellar performance, Lindbergh was awarded an All-Star Game and NHL First All-Star Team selection, was a finalist for the Hart Memorial Trophy (won by Wayne Gretzky), and earned the Vezina, which was presented to him at the awards gala by his idol and mentor figure, Bernie Parent.

Tragically, as mentioned, this would be Lindbergh’s final full year. Early into the next campaign, he would pass away after a single-vehicle accident in Somerdale, NJ after uncharacteristically driving up his BAC level to a 0.24%, well above New Jersey’s legal limit of the time and getting behind the wheel of his custom Porsche. The team had won ten straight games and were out celebrating at the bar at the Coliseum, their practice venue in Voorhees, NJ, and a Bennigan’s restaurant outlet. At the time of his death, Lindbergh’s record stood at 6-2-0, with a GAA of 2.84 and a SV% of .884. It is possible that he would have repeated had he lived to play out the entire season, and he topped the fan voting posthumously for the 1986 All-Star Game (marking the first time such a selection had occurred in North American sports, and it has been joined only by Sean Taylor’s selection to the 2008 Pro Bowl after his murder in November of 2007). Notably, Lindbergh’s Canadian backup Bob Froese was a finalist for the 1986 iteration of the award after taking over the starter spot, but lost to an American, John Vanbiesbrouck of the New York Rangers, by a single vote.

Dominik Hasek (Czech Republic, Buffalo Sabres, 1994/1995/1997/1998/1999/2001)

It took nine years for there to be a followup to Lindbergh’s monumental achievement for European goaltenders, but a Czech goalie was practically entitled to the award once it first came into his hands. Hasek’s numbers were absurd during this run. Each time he won the trophy, his save percentage was .930 or better, topping out at .937 in 1998-99, good for sixth all-time for a single season amongst goaltenders with a minimum of 25 games played since the stat began being tracked in 1955-56. Further noteworthy accomplishments include him being the first European goaltender to lead the league in GAA, accomplished in 1993-94, during which he posted a 1.95 (only his second-lowest in this run, however, with the lowest being a 1.87 during the 1998-99 season). This also made him the first NHL goaltender since Bernie Parent in 1973-74 to post a sub-2.00 GAA. In that same year’s postseason, he set a record which still stands for most saves in a game without surrendering a goal, with 70 in a 1-0 four-overtime shutout win in a duel against Canadian rookie goaltender Martin Brodeur and his New Jersey Devils. Further noteworthy accomplishments in this stretch include back-to-back Hart Memorial Trophies and Lester B. Pearson Awards (the latter now known as the Ted Lindsay Award), making him the first goaltender to win multiple MVPs of either variation, in 1996-97 and 1997-98. In the latter season, he set another still-standing record by posting six shutouts in one month, with him further posting a league-leading 13 clean sheets that year. This run was capped in his final season with the Sabres prior to his trade to the Red Wings out of financial considerations and to give Hasek the opportunity to play for a contender (with whom he became the first ever European-trained starting goaltender to win a Stanley Cup in 2002) by him setting the modern record for most Vezina wins with his sixth, and winning his second Jennings trophy with a 2.11 GAA and a save percentage of .921. Additionally, during this run, Hasek was a Hart finalist in 1995, and a finalist for both the Hart and Pearson in 1998-99. He also became the only goaltender to face the highest shots per 60 minutes while also leading the league in save percentage and did so twice, in 1996 and 1998. In his only years he missed out on the Vezina during this time (1995-96 and 1999-00), he had circumstances beyond his control but still put up exceptional numbers (as just indicated by 1995-96’s aforementioned stat). In the former season, the Sabres had a down year, missing the postseason coming 11th in the Eastern Conference and posting a team goal differential of -15 (the team’s lowest +/- was held by D Alexei Zhitnik who had a -25) while seemingly dealing with offensive impotence, as there was a 33 point gap between the team’s leading scorer, center and captain Pat LaFontaine (who had 91 points) and second-place scorer LW Randy Burridge (58 pts). This, curiously, was a season where the team led the entire NHL in power play chances, with 477. In the latter case, Hasek was limited to just 35 games while dealing with a nagging groin injury, but posted a 2.21 GAA and a SV% of .919.

Olaf Kölzig (Germany, Washington Capitals, 2000)

Kölzig is effectively being included by a technicality. He was born in South Africa to German parents and raised in Canada, being a product of the latter country’s hockey system. However, he is included due to his representation of Germany on the international stage. In his 1999-00 Vezina-winning campaign with the Caps, Kölzig played a whopping 73 games (a franchise record since matched by Canadian Braden Holtby, though Kölzig still holds the single-season minutes played franchise record by virtue of his reliability that season, with 4,371), posting a record of 41-20-11, with a 2.24 GAA and a .917 SV%. Interestingly, in that year’s All-Star Game, he became one of four goaltenders to play a scoreless stanza in an ASG, which usually are high-scoring affairs. While this was Kölzig’s sole season atop the NHL’s goaltending pantheon, it was certainly one to remember, and a great peak in a career that saw him set many Washington Capitals franchise records that he still holds (and those records lie across the spectrum of regular season, single season, and playoffs, with the lattermost having an interesting binary of most career playoff shutouts with the Capitals with six, alongside the most career PIMs in the postseason by a Caps goalie with 12). We will be doing a retrospective on Kölzig’s career on our podcast in the fairly near future, so there will be plenty more facts and statistics to learn about him when that time comes.

Miikka Kiprusoff (Finland, Calgary Flames, 2006)

Though Kiprusoff led Calgary to the Stanley Cup Finals where the Flames narrowly (and, to some, controversially) lost to the favored Tampa Bay Lightning in seven games in the year prior to the lockout that eliminated the entire 2004-05 season, it was actually the Finn’s outing in the year after that was his most individually accomplished. Kiprusoff captured the Vezina, Jennings, and a First All-Star Team selection this year, as well as a finalist nod for the Hart Memorial Trophy (won by Joe Thornton). He posted a 2.07 GAA and a .923 SV%, along with 10 shutouts, and a record of 42-20-11 (the lattermost stat at this point is overtime and shootout losses, with this being the inaugural season of the shootout and the end of ties in the NHL). Further, with his 40th win of the year, Kiprusoff broke Mike Vernon’s franchise record for most wins in a single season. Despite the accolades and accomplishments, some misfortune did fall upon Miikka this year, however. The NHL All-Star Game was not held in 2006 as it fell on an Olympic year, which would grant players the opportunity to have a major international achievement during the season’s break. Kiprusoff did not have this opportunity, as he would have to pull out of the Finland squad to nurse a hip injury. Finland would end up taking home the silver medal from Turin short of that year’s best goaltender in the world, falling to their neighbors/rivals Sweden 3-2 in the goal medal game, coming two years removed from them taking home the silver upon another 3-2 defeat at the hands of Canada at the last hurdle in 2004’s World Cup of Hockey.

Henrik Lundqvist (Sweden, New York Rangers, 2012)

In this campaign for the Blueshirts, the Swede Lundqvist, already arguably the best goaltender of his generation, cemented his legendary status. He already held the record for most consecutive seasons with 30 or more wins and extended that streak to seven this season (reaching the 30 plateau with a 2-0 shutout of rivals New Jersey Devils on February 27th), posting a record of 39-18-5, to go along with a 1.97 GAA and a SV% of .930. He further posted 8 shutouts while surpassing 40 for his career this season (having reached the 40 plateau with a 3-0 blanking of the Winnipeg Jets on January 24th), with his most notable performance perhaps being a 42 save stonewalling of the defending Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins on February 14th in a 3-0 victory. Needless to say, Lundqvist played a pivotal role in John Tortorella’s Rangers squad finishing the season with the best record in the Eastern Conference. He would put up a 10-10 record in the postseason (needing seven games each to dispatch both the Ottawa Senators and the Washington Capitals) with a 1.82 GAA and a SV% of .931, with the run ending in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Devils upon an overtime goal by New Jersey C Adam Henrique just 1:03 into the extra frame, as the Rangers suffered three consecutive losses to their hated adversaries after taking a 2-1 series lead. Despite the disappointing end to the playoffs for King Henrik and NYR, it was a shining light for him, as well as the rest of the Swedish hockey community, when he was announced as the first Swedish goaltender since Pelle Lindbergh became the first ever European Vezina Trophy recipient in 1985 to win the award for the league’s top netminder.

A curious aside about these last two recipients, both hailing from the Fennoscandian peninsula, is that they were parties to an interesting balloting situation in 2007. Lundqvist and Kiprusoff were tied for third place in Vezina voting, therefore creating a situation wherein there were four finalists for a major award for the first time in NHL history. The award ended up going to Martin Brodeur that season, with his fellow Montrealer Roberto Luongo of the Vancouver Canucks coming in second and the allocations being 122 votes for Brodeur to Luongo’s 116, with Lundqvist and Kiprusoff both receiving 7 each.

Sergei Bobrovsky (Russia, Columbus Blue Jackets, 2013/2017)

There is a fairly impressive, albeit short in terms of years since first becoming prominent, lineage of goaltenders of Russian origin in the NHL and there was even prior to the 2012-13 lockout shortened season. While the likes of Evgeni Nabokov, Nikolai Khabibulin, and Ilya Bryzgalov (the lattermost having formed a goaltending tandem with Bobrovsky with the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2011-12 season) had their share of impressive accomplishments in their respective heydays, none of them were ever formally anointed as the best goaltender in a league season, nor were any other Russian netminders until Bob did so in 2013. While narrowly missing out on the final Western Conference playoff spot, which went to the Minnesota Wild, Bobrovsky did everything in his power to get CBJ there. He posted a GAA of 2.00 and a SV% of .932, in addition to a 21-11-6 and 4 shutouts. Not done yet, he had another stellar regular season in 2016-17, posting a 41-17-5 record (second best record in the league, while also setting a single season CBJ franchise record for wins), with tops in the NHL in both primary individual goaltending statistics via a 2.06 GAA and a .931 and the third most shutouts with 7. His disappointing, truncated 2017 postseason run notwithstanding (CBJ, having joined the Eastern Conference as part of the NHL’s realignment that took effect in the 2013-14 season, faced the eventual repeat Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round and were quickly dispatched with Bobrovsky putting up poor numbers in those five games), with numbers such as these, it is understandable why Bob accounts for both of the first two Russian Vezina wins.

Tuukka Rask (Finland, Boston Bruins, 2014)

Coming off a run to the 2013 Stanley Cup Finals which included allowing only 2 goals in 14 periods (this is accounted for by Game 3 going to 2 overtimes, and includes Rask stopping 134 of 136 shots on net, therefore posting a 0.50 GAA and a .985 SV%) against the favored Pittsburgh Penguins in a four-game sweep, Rask followed this up with a season wherein he posted a record of 36-15-6 as he backstopped the Black and Gold to a Presidents’ Trophy win. The Finn’s individual numbers this year included a 2.04 GAA and a SV% of .930. The 2013-14 Bruins led the Eastern Conference in team defense, with a goals allowed per game of 2.08, due in large part to Rask’s exceptional play. Additionally, Rask had a 10 game points-won streak that lasted from March 20th to March 30th, posting a 9-0-1 record in this stretch. This was the first year of Rask’s eight-year, $56 million contract that he signed in the summer of 2013, and the team certainly got his money’s worth out of him. It is lamentable that Tuukka’s only Stanley Cup ring came as a backup in 2011, as he put in some phenomenal performances on Causeway Street, setting many team records in the process.

Pekka Rinne (Finland, Nashville Predators, 2018)

There are some interesting parallels between Rask’s 2013-14 season and the 2017-18 campaign of his countryman Pekka Rinne. Both Finnish goaltenders were coming off six-game losses in the Stanley Cup Finals to teams who were building or cementing their status as contemporary NHL dynasties (with the Bruins losing to the Blackhawks, who captured their second title in four years and would win their third title in six seasons in 2015, and the Predators falling to the Penguins, who captured their second title in a row and their third in nine years), both won the Presidents’ Trophy that year, both fell in the second round of the postseason in seven games (with the B’s losing to traditional adversary the Canadiens and the Preds falling to the Jets), and both captured the Vezina Trophy. In guiding Peter Laviolette’s Predators to the league’s best record, Rinne posted a record of 42-13-4, with 8 shutouts, a GAA of 2.31 and a SV% of .927. On February 22nd, 2018, he became the 34th member of the 300 wins club with a 7-1 triumph over the San Jose Sharks. In the process, he became the club member with the third-best win percentage (54.34%), behind Martin Brodeur and Brodeur’s fellow Quebec native Marc-Andre Fleury. It was quite a wrap to everything that the then-35-year-old was able to commemorate this season with a trophy recognizing his success between the pipes that year.

In something of an epilogue to/bow-tie on Rinne’s story, there is yet more poeticism, also involving the Bruins. Rinne has signed a contract extension on his birthday (November 3rd) and followed it up with a clean sheet twice, once on his 29th in 2011, wherein he shut out the Coyotes on the road to the tune of 35 saves in a 3-0 victory after inking a seven-year, $49 million contract (then a franchise record before being shattered by the Preds’ matching of Philadelphia’s offer sheet to D Shea Weber in the summer of 2012) earlier that day, then again at home against Boston, 2-0, with 26 saves in 2018, after signing a 2-year, $10 million extension. Very interestingly cyclical. Additionally, if you want a laugh, the attendance figure for the Coyotes game was 6,378, despite being a home game by a team that won their division that season and went on a run to the Conference Finals. For a final thought on this topic, Juuse Saros, another Finnish netminder for Nashville, was a Vezina finalist in 2022 and followed that up in 2022-23 by leading the league in GSAA and goalie WAR (minimum 37 games played). We will see if he can follow in Rinne’s footsteps this coming year.

Andrei Vasilevskiy (Russia, Tampa Bay Lightning, 2019)

The 2018-19 Presidents’ Trophy winning Tampa Bay Lightning were one of the most dominant regular season teams ever prior to their shocking sweep at the hands of the Columbus Blue Jackets in round one of that postseason, handing the latter team their first ever playoff series win and prompting an infamous tweet that I am not going to link because you already know. The Bolts tied the 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings for the most wins in a single year with 62 and put up 128 points in the regular season standings. A massive part of their success of their performance was Vas’ dominance, with the Russian leading the league in wins for the second year in a row (a streak that wound up lasting five seasons), this time putting up 39 after having registered 44 victories in 2017-18. He put up 6 clean sheets to go along with a GAA of 2.40 and a SV% of .925. His accomplishments and milestones in the 2018-19 campaign included tying Ben Bishop’s franchise record for saves in a single game by making 48 stops in a 4-1 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs, eclipsing his countryman Khabibulin’s career franchise second place spot for shutouts by registering his 15th in a 2-0 win over Dallas on the road, and further tying then breaking Bishop’s record by registering his 17th and 18th on back-to-back nights, then breaking the record he had previously tied for single-game saves by stopping 54 Washington Capitals shots in a 5-4 overtime road win. He further broke Bishop’s franchise record for saves on March 20th, 2019, by getting his 5,739th career save with the Bolts in a win against the Boston Bruins. Lastly, he surpassed Darren Puppa for second-most starts between the pipes in team history with his 207th start on April 1st. What is perhaps most impressive about Vasilevskiy’s campaign this unbelievable season is that he missed four weeks with a broken left foot. He showed a significant amount of guts this year, and very much earned becoming only the second Russian to win the Vezina Trophy. Vas further was the first ever Vezina Trophy winner in the history of the Tampa Bay Lightning franchise.

Igor Shesterkin (Russia, New York Rangers, 2022)

In the process of becoming the fourth Russian Vezina winner (third unique) in the previous ten years, Shesterkin led the league in both GAA (2.07) and SV% (.935) and put up 6 shutouts. Early into the first season of his four-year, $22.67 million deal, Shesterkin put up 40 saves on 41 shots in a 2-1 OT win against Toronto, which was his seventh since his January 2020 NHL debut (good for tops of all goaltenders in that timespan). He registered his 50th win in 79 starts against Ottawa on February 20th, 2022, becoming the 14th goaltender ever to do so. His record ended up being an impressive 36-13-4, with him earning not only the Vezina, but third place in the Hart Memorial Trophy race and a First All-Star Team selection. He subsequently led the Rangers to the Eastern Conference Finals with a 2.59 GAA and a SV% of .929, where they were defeated in six games by the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning and his Russian countryman Andrei Vasilevskiy (the then-incumbent Conn Smythe Trophy winner). Shesterkin added to the excellent accomplishments that Russian goaltenders with arguably one of the most impressive performances we have seen from a NHL goaltender, and most certainly one of the best of the 21st century.

Linus Ullmark (Sweden, Boston Bruins, 2023)

As of right now, this story concludes with a bookend, with a Swede emerging victorious as it began with, as well as a mirror of a seemingly early-concluding narrative previously mentioned. In their 99th season, the Boston Bruins set numerous NHL records for regular season domination. In quick succession, they destroyed every “first team to [x] wins” milestone in their way, eventually breaking the shared record of the 2018-19 Bolts/1995-96 Wings for most wins in a regular season, with 65, and the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens’ record for points, with 135. In the process, the Bruins allowed the fewest goals in the league with 177 (36 fewer than the second-place Carolina Hurricanes), granting the Jennings Trophy to Swedish starter Linus Ullmark and his American backup/close friend Jeremy Swayman (who respectively appeared in 49 and 37 games). Ullmark’s statline included a record of 40-6-1, with league bests in both GAA (1.89) and SV% (.938). He notably made his first All-Star Game appearance this past season, and, in addition to his Vezina and Jennings Trophy wins, was a First-Team All-Star selection. He also became the thirteenth goaltender to be credited with a goal in a NHL game (combined regular season and playoffs) on February 25th, 2023 in a game against the Vancouver Canucks, wherein he shot the puck into Vancouver’s empty net. He was the first NHL goaltender to score since fellow Fennoscandian Pekka Rinne did so in 2020, and is one of eight of the thirteen to have scored by a direct shot on net (accompanied by Ron Hextall [who did so twice], Chris Osgood, Martin Brodeur [who has two further credited goals by way of opposing team’s own goal], Jose Theodore, Russian Evgeni Nabokov, Mike Smith, and the aformentioned Rinne).

While of course none of the successful seasons accounted here occurred entirely in a vacuum, it is perhaps worth mentioning that the 2022-23 Boston Bruins had absurdly good defensive analytics and advanced stats. To provide but one example, the team had three of the top ten players in defensive point shares this past year, including the league leader Hampus Lindholm (7.2), 6th place Brandon Carlo (5.9), and 7th place Matt Grzelcyk (5.8). Assuredly, this must have had some significant impact. Ullmark was no scrub in Buffalo, there is a reason why the Boston franchise was so keen on getting him, which they were able to do on an economical deal, but he went from one extreme of team defensive prowess to another, and the higher extreme had to have benefited him. To Ullmark’s credit, however, his career numbers of 116-63-16 (he achieved his 100th career win this past season) with a 2.50 GAA and a .919 SV% are pretty respectable. There are arguably many reasons why the Bruins’ postseason run did not last longer in 2023. However, a healthy Ullmark (we still do not know the nature of his injury that “limited his technique and mobility”), with or without the rotation being utilized that Jim Montgomery deployed during the regular season, could possibly have changed the outcome of their first round series against the Florida Panthers, wherein they were up 3-1 and ended up losing in overtime at home in Game 7 after Ullmark was finally pulled in favor of Swayman after allowing 7 goals in Game 6. In any event, the book closed early, in a manner comparable to the 2018-19 Lightning.

To some reading all of this information, the most idiosyncratic element of this narrative of European Vezina winners may be that there have only been two European repeat Vezina winners ever, that only one of them was also a recipient of either league MVP (with Hasek winning both twice in a row as was noted), or that it took so many years for there to be a Russian winner. What I personally find most intriguing is the common thread between all of these: None of these goaltenders won the Stanley Cup that same season. In fact, only Lindbergh and Hasek even made it to the Finals that same year (1985 and 1999, respectively). Hasek, Rask (though not as a starter), and Vasilevskiy have won it in different seasons and Rask, Rinne, Vasilevskiy, and Ullmark have claimed Presidents’ Trophies in their respective Vezina-winning campaigns, yet no European goaltender has ever won the Vezina and hoisted Lord Stanley’s Cup over their head in the same year. Granted, it is rare for Vezina winners to win the Cup in the same year at large with it only happening four times in the modern history of the award, but it is surprising that there have been so few even so much as opportunities. It is possible with the rise of European goaltending excellence that we may see this someday, but until then, this serves as a compelling gap yet to be filled.