Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy has won the 2025-26 Vezina Trophy for being the league’s best goaltender. It’s Vasilevskiy’s second time winning the award in his 12-year career. Since it was his second Vezina Trophy, the Lightning decided to have a little fun at their goalie’s expense.
Rather than just give him the trophy, the franchise opted to orchestrate a prank utilizing two members of local law enforcement.
Vasilevskiy notoriously doesn’t take any days off, and so Tampa Bay knew he would be working out at the facility. The goalie was alerted to a police presence requesting to talk to him about his car parked in the lot.
The officer explained a scenario in which a criminal had fled into the parking lot and a drug dog on site had given an alert signal at Vasilevskiy’s car.
When the officers inspected his car, there was a giant bag in his front seat that the goalie had no clue about. They removed it from the vehicle and then revealed the trophy.
Vasilevskiy said about the prank, “I was just happy that my car was in one piece. I didn’t want to go through, like, the insurance process when I heard that this suspicious object was in my car. It’s probably not gonna end well.”
After laughing off the prank, the goalie did talk about what it meant to win the trophy for the second time.
“As a professional goalie who plays in the NHL, it’s one of your ultimate goals for sure to win the [Vezina] award. But it’s all about the team, and you will never win this award without a good team in front of you. That means a lot to me.”
“As a professional goalie who plays in the NHL, it’s one of your ultimate goals for sure to win the [Vezina] award. But it’s all about the team, and you will never win this award without a good team in front of you. That means a lot to me.”
Vasilevskiy originally took home the award in 2019. That year, the goalie played in 53 games and had a 39-10-4 record.
Vasilevskiy played in 58 games this season with Tampa Bay. He had a 39-15-4 record and saved 91.1% of shots against him. The goalie finished with a 2.31 average goals against per game, the second-best mark in the league among goalies who started at least 20 games.
The Lightning made the playoffs as a wild-card team after finishing the year 50-26-6. Tampa Bay beat the Pittsburgh Penguins in six games in the first round, but was then swept by the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round.
The 31-year-old Vasilevskiy signed an eight-year, $76 million extension ahead of the 2020-21 season. He has two years left on his deal and is set to hit free agency in 2028.
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