Was Islanders Ilya Sorokin snubbed for Vezina Trophy?

The top three names for the NHL's top goalie award, the Vezina Trophy, have been released. And New York Islanders shot-stopper Ilya Sorokin did not make the ballot. Is that a snub or not?

The top three goalies this year in the NHL are New York Rangers Ilya Shesterkin, Nashville Predators Juuse Saros, and Calgary Flames Jakob Markstrom.

New York Islanders: Was Ilya Sorokin snubbed for Vezina Trophy?

To figure out if Ilya Sorokin was snubbed or not we have to look at his stats from the regular season, compared to the rest of the NHL. Here's what he's got:

Wins: 26 (18th)
GAA: 2.40GAA (4th)
SV%: 0.925SV% (2nd)
SO: 7 (2nd)
GSAx: 12.8 (10th)*

* From MoneyPuck.com
**Wins, GAA, and SV% for goalies who played at least 20 games

Sorokin was easily one of the better goalies in the NHL. There's no question about that. Just look at how he compares to the rest of the league. Everything outside of wins he's a top 10 goalie. And honestly wins are a garbage stat for measuring the quality of a goalie (or any individual). But I keep wins in because that's something that matters to the voters (the GMs).

So how do the three goalies seemingly up for the award compare to the rest of the league in the same categories?:

Shesterkin
Wins: 36 (6th)
GAA: 2.07GAA (1st)
SV%: 0.935SV% (1st)
SO: 6 (3rd)
GSAx: 34.1 (1st)

Saros
Wins: 38 (3rd)
GAA: 2.64GAA (16th)
SV%: 0.918SV% (8th)
SO: 7 (2nd)
GSAx: 20.7 (6th)

Markstrom
Wins: 37 (4th)
GAA: 2.22GAA (3rd)
SV%: 0.922SV% (4th)
SO: 9 (1st)
GSAx: 10.8 (12th)

There's no question that all three were good goalies this year. There's also no question that it's Shesterkin's award to lose. He's at the top of the list for all relevant categories. Even Markstrom is a worth finalist.

Saros is the one that could fall out of the top three in favor of Sorokin. He's eighth on average for his shot-stopping rate and well out of the top ten for the number of goals against per game. Those are two of the most relevant and popular stats when it comes to measuring the quality of a goalie and he's getting passed by a number of goalies.

So on that alone, I have to think that Sorokin got a bit of a snub here. But I'm not going to get too worked up over it just yet. We still don't know how the vote actually went. As in how far back (or not) did Sorokin actually end up?

Sorokin doesn't deserve to win the award but he should be near the top of the list. So we'll have to wait and see how many votes he got from the 32 GMs in the league. It's possible that Sorokin finished fourth in Vezina voting by only a few points. And missing out by a few points doesn't seem like something to get too mad about.

So for now there's the possibility of a snub, but we won't know for sure until we know the extent of the vote.