Poll of nearly 500 NHLers shows that Carey Price has taken a HUGE reputation hit

The NHL Players Association (NHLPA) has released its annual anonymous player poll in which the players are asked a variety of questions about their peers like:

Who is the best defenceman?

Who is the best sniper?

Who is the most complete player?

Who is the best stick-handler?

Who is the best passer?

Maybe I'm just a weird former goalie, but what I'm most interested in is who NHL players think is the best goalie in the world?

It's Carey Price, right? I mean... year in and year out the players seem to choose Price in these polls, despite the fact that he hasn't been in the Vezina Trophy conversation for nearly half a decade now. Well... guess again, because Price garnered just 8.25% of the vote. But, here's the thing... that measly 8% was enough to put him in third place behind Marc Andre Fleury who garnered just 8.88% of the vote. So... who won the vote with the overwhelming majority? Tampa Bay Lightning netminder Andrei Vasilevsky takes it with a whopping 54.12% of the vote!

Check it out:

Perennial Vezina Trophy candidate, Vasilevskiy takes the top spot in convincing fashion ending Price’s run of three consecutive seasons being named as the top goaltender in the NHLPA Player Poll.

The biggest surprise to me though might be that Connor Hellebuyck garnered only 5% of the vote. Honestly, I wonder if the numbers might be skewed significantly because nearly 20% of choices aren't accounted for here. I'm going to assume that those votes simply went to whomever the starting goalie is on a particular players' team. Ask John Tavares who the best goalie in the NHL is and he'll probably say Jack Campbell or Frederik Andersen. Ask Sidney Crosby who the best goalie in the NHL is and he'll probably say Tristan Jarry. Now... we know as fans that those choices are ridiculous, but NHL players don't exactly break down things as analytically as they maybe should. Especially when it comes to the voodoo known as goaltending.

If nothing else, it'll be interesting to see how the battle between younger guys like Vasilevsky and Hellebuyck plays out over the next few years. I don't expect Price, Fleury and Tuukka Rask to remain on this list forever.