Coach-Goalie Familiarity a key factor that may reveal sleepers.

John Tortorella was hired by the Vegas Golden Knights with eight games left in the season. He gave six starts to Carter Hart and two starts to Adin Hill. Both played well as the Golden Knights remained undefeated to end the campaign (7-0-1). Why did he give a heavier workload to Hart? One of the reasons was that Tortorella already coached Hart in Philadelphia. In 2022-23, Hart started 55 games, with a save percentage of 0.907% and a GAA of 2.94. In early 2024, he was placed on an indefinite leave of absence for criminal court allegations. Up until that point of the 2023-24 season, while still under coach Tortorella, Hart had a save percentage of 0.906% and GAA of 2.80. With NHL coaches, it is the opposite of "familiarity breeds contempt".

Torts stuck with Hart for every single minute of the playoffs, where the Golden Knights fell short in the finals. Hart went 14-8 with a save percentage of 0.909%. Cumulatively under Tortorella, Hart got 28 starts whereas Adin Hill received just two. In those two games, Hill allowed 5 goals on 57 shots (0.912%). Hart's rise in fantasy value was associated with the new hire of a coach who already had a working relationship with the goalie.

As we get ready for the 2026-27 season, there are a couple of newly appointed bench bosses that have previously coached one or more of the goalies on their new team. Could these goalies be in line for a similar value boost, getting more starts as a result of this "familiarity breeds goalie starts" phenomenon?

Our first stop is in Edmonton, where Mike Babcock returns to the NHL. His last NHL game as a coach was in November of 2019. Since then he has made brief stops at the University of Vermont as a senior advisor and at the University of Saskatchewan as head coach. In 2023-24, he was hired by the Columbus Blue Jackets, and then abruptly fired before he could coach a game.

For the three seasons between 2016 and 2019, Frederik Andersen received the heaviest workload of his career playing in 66, 65, 60 games respectively. The coach was Mike Babcock. Andersen did not disappoint posting save percentages of 0.918%, 0.919%, and 0.917%. It is very possible that Babcock returns to the well that provided him strong and stable goaltending.

Devon Levi was not even a year old when Babcock made his NHL coaching debut with the Anaheim Ducks. Levi grew up in an English part of Montreal and was drafted by the Panthers in the 7th round of the 2020 NHL draft. He was sent to Buffalo in the Sam Reinhart trade. Already 24 years old and no longer waiver exempt, Levi hasn't proved much at the NHL level. He has 39 NHL games with the Sabres under his belt, sporting a career save percentage of 0.894%. His GAA has been ballooning year to year, from 2.95 to 3.10 to 4.12.

Levi is a popular breakout pick due to age and injury concerns from both Andersen and Tristan Jarry. However, I could also envision Babcock having a short leash with the youngster, and going all in with his veterans.

Tristan Jarry’s GSAx was hurting the team (negative 4.1 GSAx), and his save percentage dropped to a personal worst 0.858%. Jarry hasn’t been good for a while: in the last four NHL seasons combined, Jarry has faced 4587 shots and allowed 463 goals, for a below league average 0.899% save percentage. While Andersen's starts were always capped in Carolina due to Rod Brind'Amour's affinity for platooning goalies, there is no such hard ceiling in Edmonton. In fact, Babcock has done the opposite and ran with his most trusted option. A healthy Freddie Andersen could be a late steal in fantasy drafts, playing on an offensively capable Oilers team.

Our next stop is in California where newly hired Peter Laviolette has previously coached Darcy Kuemper in Washington. There has been a lot of up and down with Kuemper who had a sterling 0.922% in 2024-25, sandwiched between seasons of 0.890% and most recently 0.891% in 2025-26. Kuemper played poorly (negative 5.8 GSAx in 50 games) and lost a lot of value at the end of last season, as DJ Smith gave plenty of starts to Anton Forsberg. In nine April games, Forsberg out-started Kuemper six to three. That trend continued in the playoffs where Forsberg started all four games, as the Kings were swept by the Avalanche.

The good news for Kuemper is that both Jim Hiller and DJ Smith are gone, and Laviolette is in with a clean slate. Actually, it is not just clean, it is tilted in favour of Kuemper due to the familiarity of the two. They were together for the 2022-23 season where Kuemper played in a personal high of 57 games, posting a 0.909% save percentage. Both Forsberg and Kuemper are in the last year of their contracts, so changes could be on the horizon if the team is out of the playoff race at the trade deadline.

On a side note, five of Laviolette’s six years in Nashville overlap with the time Kevin Fiala was there (2014-2019). Fiala will be forgotten at drafts because of his season ending injury at the Olympics, but he does have a history with Laviolette. To be fair, Fiala really came onto the scene after the trade to Minnesota, and Laviolette never gave him higher than 15:09 average time on ice in a season. Panarin on the other hand, had his most productive season (120 points) in 2023-24 with Laviolette behind the Rangers bench.

Lastly, we circle back to the Vegas Golden Knights where recently promoted Ryan Craig has coached both Carter Hart and Adin Hill. As assistant coach for Vegas in 2022-23, Hill played 27 games (second on the team behind Logan Thompson’s 37) putting up a 0.915% save percentage. Craig also briefly coached Hart during his AHL conditioning stint with the Henderson Silver Knights last year. Hart played three games, going 1-2 with a 0.839% and a GAA of 3.07. Hill was between 0.906% and 0.918% for the six seasons before last year's horrendous 0.871%, which seems like an aberration in retrospect. Hill also has had more time under Ryan Craig in the past, so he too could be an underrated option in fantasy drafts.

The average Yahoo ADP of these three veterans: Andersen (136.4), Kuemper (148.6), and Hill (120.7) indicates that they will be available late in drafts.

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