Vasilevskiy passes longtime friend Nabokov for NHL history

It only happens once per NHL season.

But every time the Tampa Bay Lightning make their annual trek to California to play the San Jose Sharks, Andrei Vasilevskiy makes sure to catch up with an old friend.

Sometimes it’s dinner, other times it’s a quick lunch. Menu aside, Vasilevskiy always makes time for his longtime friend and former Bolts teammate in Sharks Director of Goaltending Evgeni Nabokov.

“Every time we go to San Jose, we have lunch or dinner, and we’re always talking about hockey and obviously goalie nerd stuff,” Vasilevskiy said. “As good as he was, he’s an even better person than he was a hockey player.”

Vasilevskiy caught up with Nabokov in another way this week, too.

The Lightning goaltender’s 28-save shutout victory over the Utah Mammoth on Monday marked the 354th win of Vasilevskiy’s career, passing Nabokov for the second-most wins by a Russian-born goalie in NHL history (Sergei Bobrovsky, 449).

Vasilevskiy tied Nabokov with a 2-1 shootout win in Chicago last Friday, a victory which also placed him inside the league’s top 25 all-time for career wins. The Lightning goalie’s .917 career save percentage ties for fourth among the top 25.

‘It was a big mental push for me’

Before any of those wins belonged to Vasilevskiy, he was still a young up-and-comer adapting to life in Tampa, Florida as he navigated NHL waters for the first time following success in Russia.

Among the people to help Vasilevskiy adapt to North American hockey and life included none other than Nabokov, one of the winningest Russian goalies of all time. Nabokov signed with the Lightning in July of 2014 and spent the first half of the 2014-15 season in Tampa, helping Vasilevskiy along the way.

“Overall, he was explaining to me how everything works,” Vasilevskiy said. “How you have to act here and just stuff I didn't know about because I played in Russia, which is a little bit different. The mentality is a bit different, and he was teaching me a lot of that NHL mentality.”

Vasilevskiy said he didn’t have one favorite goalie growing up, but Nabokov—as well as another former Bolt in Nikolai Khabibublin—were among the players he looked up to as fellow Russians who found success in the NHL.

And then as a rookie, he got to share the net with one of them in Nabokov.

“They were big names in hockey, especially in Russia,” Vasilevskiy said. “For me, just to be able to share the net with such a big goalie that year, it was a big mental push for me.”

Lightning goalie coach Frantz Jean watched both Nabokov and Ben Bishop show Vasilevskiy the ropes of the NHL.

“You see a fellow countryman making his entry to the NHL and trying to stick. Like everybody else, (Nabokov) recognized the tremendous talent that Vasy had, and he certainly showed a lot of leadership in terms of hanging out with him on the road, showing him how to operate in the North American lifestyle and being able to maximize your preparation with all the distraction that's around our game. Guys like that, good veterans, that's what they do. And that's what Nabby did.”

Jean noted that the goalies played in different eras of hockey, so there wasn’t an overload of similarities in their on-ice approach to goaltending.

While Vasilevskiy adheres to a more modern playing style and has the advantage of a bigger frame than Nabokov, the Russian goalie duo shares one common trait in their athleticism and ability to make jaw-dropping saves.

“Nabby came from another era of Russian goalie development, so they technically didn't have a lot of similarities in the way they played. One parallel you could make would be their athleticism, being able to make saves out of the box or out of a technical structure,” Jean said. “I think that's always been an attribute of Russian goaltending, and Nabby had that element in his game, especially when he was at his prime.”

Another year with more success

Vasilevskiy has been among the league’s best goalies all season long—his 2.07 goals against average is the lowest of any NHL goalie with at least 10 starts in 2025-26, and he ranks second in the NHL for both wins (23) and save percentage (.920).

He now sits seven wins shy of tying Carey Price in career victories and needs 18 victories to tie Andy Moog to enter the top 20 all-time. Regardless of whenever or however that happens, the numbers show Vasilevskiy is already one of the best.

“For 12 years now, he's been able to be at his best and give us the best that he's got…You look at all the stars over the 100-plus years of the NHL—the Gretzkys, the Lemieuxs—a trait that you can attach to every one of those is consistency of performance,” Jean said. “Vasy has that and has done that, and hopefully that continues. That's what impresses me the most because it's not easy in any line of work to be consistent and at your best every day. It's extremely hard.”

Twelve years ago, Vasilevskiy remembers working with Nabokov and taking mental notes of what it would require to become a full-time member of the Lightning.

That’s what matters most to him about his latest achievement—that it’s all happened right here for the same team that drafted him with the 19^th overall pick in 2012.

“Honestly, I’m a bit surprised that it happened that fast, and I never dreamed of something like that. Just to be just a top Russian goalie in the history of the NHL, that means a lot to me,” Vasilevskiy said.

“But for me, most importantly, it's that I've done that with only one team. That’s the most important aspect of that record because nowadays it's hard to play for one team. Guys are switching teams like crazy, so it’s a big honor for me to play for Tampa, play all those games and get all those wins, and I hope there are many more to come all with this one team.”