Jet Greaves Is the NHL’s Most Underrated Goalie

2026-06-29 · Jet Greaves · Blue Jackets · underrated · free agency

Columbus' Jet Greaves was a top-7 NHL goalie in 2025-26 by shot-quality-adjusted GSAx — all on an $812,500 cap hit. The case the box score hides.

How does an NHL goalie become a name you know? There are only a few roads. You go high in the draft, and the league anoints you before you've played a game. You land in a marquee market, where every start is a story. You win in the playoffs, and above all you win a Cup. You get called to a best-on-best international tournament. Or you win hardware. Recognition is built on pedigree, market, and signature moments.

Jet Greaves has none of it. He went undrafted. He plays in Columbus, one of the league's quieter markets. He has never played a playoff game. No Cup, no Vezina. And when Canada picked its goaltenders for the 2026 Olympics, it called Jordan Binnington, Darcy Kuemper and Logan Thompson — not him. By the conventional routes to becoming known, Jet Greaves is a stranger.

Just how unknown is he?

When Greaves started stringing together starts for Columbus, one of the bigger reactions online was an r/hockey thread literally titled "Who the hell is this Jet Greaves dude?" The attention data tells the same story. Over the trailing 12 months, worldwide Google search interest (relative, 0-100) placed Jakub Dobeš at 14.5, Binnington at 9.5, Jesper Wallstedt at 6.1 — and Greaves last at 3.7. For context, their 2025-26 Goals Saved Above Expected: Dobeš +17.4, Greaves +15.8, Wallstedt +12.4, Binnington −25.1. Greaves drew less than half the search interest of Binnington, whose −25.1 GSAx was one of the weakest marks of any starter this season. Reputation and on-ice results have drifted a long way apart.

The undrafted-goalie path

For goalies, the road rarely runs straight. Goaltender is the hardest position in hockey to project, and every year future starters slip through all seven rounds of the draft. The usual path for an undrafted Canadian junior goalie is a grind — sign as a free agent, work through the ECHL and AHL, and wait years for a one-game look. Greaves walked exactly that road: undrafted out of the OHL, he signed with Columbus as a free agent and spent his development years in the minors before turning a late-arriving opportunity into a top-7 season at age 24.

"Does not have ideal size for the goaltending position, but he makes up for it with plenty of athleticism. Was never drafted out of the OHL and did not put up good numbers in junior hockey. However, his perseverance and resilience has pushed him as a professional goaltender. Could stand to become a more consistent puck stopper from game to game."

That last concern — consistency — is the one the NHL data has most directly answered: his 71.8% quality-start rate (8th in the league) is the statistical signature of exactly the consistency the scouts wanted to see.

Goalie value (GAR) by season

Seventh in the league

Goals Saved Above Expected scores every shot against our expected-goals model and credits the goalie for the gap between the goals an average goalie would have allowed and the goals he actually allowed. By GSAx, Greaves ranked 7th in the entire NHL in 2025-26 (15.8, among 66 goalies with 20+ games) — and 7th in goalie GAR (25.0), worth about 4.5 wins. Columbus was a middle-of-the-pack defensive club, so this isn't a number inflated by an elite defense; it's a goalie who simply stopped more pucks than expected.

2025-26 NHL GSAx leaders (min. 20 GP)

What NHL Edge tracking shows

The NHL's own Edge tracking tells the same story by shot location. On high-danger (slot / net-front) shots, Greaves saved 84.1% — 8th in the NHL, 89th percentile (among 63 goalies with 20+ tracked games). Mid-range: .890 (24th). Long-range: .970 (26th). He grades out elite precisely where goals are most likely to come from.

The bargain — and the raise that's coming

Greaves did all of this on an $812,500 cap hit, barely above the league minimum — one of the most surplus-positive contracts in the league. And it's up: Greaves is a restricted free agent this summer, due for a new contract. Even after regressing a single strong season hard, our model still projects him as a clear starter: roughly 10.7 projected GAR and a $6.0M open-market value in 2026-27, climbing toward $6.7M at his projected peak. Stacked against every goalie 27-and-under, our model projects him 2nd by 2026-27 GAR (behind only Dobeš), and 9th of 132 projected goalies leaguewide — ahead of more-hyped young names like Spencer Knight, Dustin Wolf, Lukáš Dostál and Jesper Wallstedt.

The recognition is starting to turn

Recognition shapes opportunities, and Greaves' are beginning to open. Snubbed for the 2026 Olympics, he earned the net at the 2026 World Championship — his first time representing Canada — and delivered: 8 games, a 6-2 record, and a .920 save percentage, carrying Canada to the bronze-medal game. With the 2028 World Cup of Hockey on the horizon, an undrafted goalie who couldn't crack the Olympic roster is suddenly a real contender for a best-on-best job. For now the recognition still trails the production by one of the widest margins in the league — and when the reputation catches up, the numbers will have called it first.

See it for yourself on Jet Greaves' player page, put him next to the rest of the league in our Explorer, or read how the models work on our methodology page.

All stats reflect our data as of publication (June 29, 2026) and are a point-in-time snapshot. International totals are from the 2026 IIHF World Championship; search-interest figures are worldwide Google Trends relative interest over the trailing 12 months.

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