was Antti Raanta. His statistics suggest he sho

Rankings take a lot more into account than pure statistical performance. For these rest-of-season rankings we produce on ESPN.com every week, a players stats so far are just one part of the equation. We consider performance in past seasons, teammates, injury or injury history, age, trajectory, statistical trends and current stats.Given the number of variables, its inevitable that our rankings will differ from the pure statistical rankings of what players have done so far this season. But sometimes it helps to take a break and have a look at just what has happened to date.We are going to take a quick peek at the goaltender rankings based purely on stats. The ESPN Player Rater does our work for us by comparing every goaltenders numbers so far this season against the rest of the league and giving us a positive (or negative) value for those stats.Its a little tricky for goaltenders because backup goalies with good ratios tend to rank quite high for pure statistical performance, but in reality backups arent as helpful to fantasy owners since they dont play consistently. To find some balance to account for the nature of backup goaltenders, we are going to leave a few out of our rankings and make a note of it. Well use a 12-team league as the setting to determine our No. 1 and No. 2 fantasy goaltenders.No. 1 fantasy goaltenders1. Devan Dubnyk, Minnesota Wild 2. Carey Price, Montreal Canadiens 3. Sergei Bobrovsky, Columbus Blue Jackets 4. Tuukka Rask, Boston Bruins 5. Chad Johnson, Calgary Flames 6. Braden Holtby, Washington Capitals 7. Jimmy Howard, Detroit Red Wings 8. Martin Jones, San Jose Sharks 9. Corey Crawford, Chicago Blackhawks 10. Matt Murray, Pittsburgh Penguins 11. Roberto Luongo, Florida Panthers 12. Craig Anderson, Ottawa SenatorsDiscussion: There isnt too much disparity between this result so far and our actual rankings. Nine of the 12 No. 1 fantasy goaltenders are ranked in the same grouping below. The exceptions are Johnson, Howard and Anderson, which are all fair exceptions when you consider the context. Johnsons entire body of work is about three weeks of elite performance, Howard lost his job last season and wasnt expected to get it back, while Anderson had previously been fantasy-irrelevant for a couple of seasons partly due to injury. They are all working their way back into our good graces and certainly all three should be owned in all fantasy hockey leagues. We just need to see all three turn in solid performances a little longer before we would be willing to bet the remainder of our fantasy season on them. Its especially difficult to jump on board with Johnson or Howard because two of the best fantasy goaltenders from last season, Brian Elliott and Petr Mrazek, are competing with them for time in the crease. Johnson and Howard are clearly winning the battles so far, but its tough to shake that concern.The only goaltender on the ESPN Player Rater we skipped for this top-12 list was Antti Raanta. His statistics suggest he should be No. 6 overall on the list, but plenty of that value comes from playing only sparingly. That is not to say, however, that Raanta shouldnt be on your radar right now. Henrik Lundqvists ratios are downright pedestrian this season and the result has led to Raanta starting the past three consecutive games despite King Henrik being in perfect health. For his part, Raanta has two consecutive shutouts and won all three games. We have to allow a lot of respect for Lundqvist here, however, as hes been the king of fantasy consistency for a decade. Still, owners of Lundqvist will want to take the unexpected step of handcuffing him sooner than later.No. 2 fantasy goaltenders13. Peter Budaj, Los Angeles Kings 14. Cam Talbot, Edmonton Oilers 15. Pekka Rinne, Nashville Predators 16. Jake Allen, St. Louis Blues 17. Cam Ward, Carolina Hurricanes 18. Henrik Lundqvist,