Jonathan Quick Vezina Trophy 2012
A Connecticut kid in a 30-jersey, just the right height to make the net look small, crowned the best in hockey the year the Cup finally came home.
The Vezina Trophy is awarded annually to the National Hockey League's top goaltender, voted on by members of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association. When Jonathan Quick of the Los Angeles Kings claimed the honour in 2012 (for the 2011–12 season), the award carried an extraordinary weight: it crowned the netminder who had anchored the franchise's first-ever Stanley Cup championship, silencing a city that had waited 45 years for a title.
Quick, a 6-foot-1-inch Connecticut-raised goaltender wearing number 30, had become the face of the Kings' goaltending by that point. His 2012 Vezina was not merely a statistical nod but a recognition of a season in which his composure, his compact frame, and his willingness to play the puck with his hands defined a team's identity. It was the only Vezina Trophy he would earn, as he did not win the award in 2014—that year's honour went to Tuukka Rask of the Boston Bruins.
Quick Facts
- Height
- 6 ft 1 in (185 cm)
Lore & Background
By the 2011–12 season, Jonathan Quick had already shed the label of 'project' that clung to him through his early years in Los Angeles. Drafted by the Kings in 2005, he spent several seasons splitting time with a backup and learning the NHL's punishing pace before the reins were handed to him full-time. What emerged was a goaltender unlike most in the league: unusually athletic, unafraid to play the puck with his hands in the neutral zone, and possessed of a calm that bordered on the meditative. Fans at the Staples Center learned to read his body language—the slight head tilt, the deliberate weight shift before a save—as if watching a chess player think three moves ahead.
The 2012 Vezina arrived in the shadow of the Kings' first Stanley Cup, a 4-2 series victory over the New Jersey Devils that ended a 45-year championship drought. Quick started every game of that run, and the city of Los Angeles, long starved for a championship sport, treated him as a folk hero. He was not the flashiest star; he did not score 50 goals or light up highlight reels with wrist shots. He simply stood in the crease, calm and unhurried, and made the impossible look routine. The Vezina, in that context, felt less like a statistical award and more like a city finally saying, 'We see you. You were the one holding the line.'
Quick did not win a second Vezina in 2014, as the award that year went to Tuukka Rask. Nevertheless, Quick remained a fixture of the Kings' identity for over a decade, though he did not spend his entire professional career with Los Angeles—he was traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2023 and later played for the Vegas Golden Knights and New York Rangers. For a franchise that had spent decades as a punchline in the NHL, having a goaltender win the league's top individual award for the position was a quiet, stubborn proof that Los Angeles belonged in the conversation.
Reader's Guide
Who: Jonathan Quick, Los Angeles Kings goaltender, #30. When: Vezina Trophy awarded in 2012 for the 2011–12 NHL season. Context: The season in which the Kings captured their first Stanley Cup, defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-2 in the Finals. Quick started every game of the postseason run.
Key comparison points: Quick won the Vezina in both 2012 and 2014, making him the only Kings goaltender to claim the award twice. The 2012 Vezina came in a championship season, a context that elevates it beyond a purely statistical honour. His 6'5" frame made him one of the tallest active goaltenders in the NHL during that era, a physical attribute that informed his playing style.
Quick's 2012 Vezina is best understood not in isolation but as the capstone of a season in which the Kings' goaltending was the fulcrum of a historic run. The award recognized a body of work—regular-season consistency, playoff composure, and a willingness to manage the game from the crease—that aligned perfectly with the team's identity that year. In the broader Vezina history, Quick stands as a modern-era winner whose two trophies (2012, 2014) bookended a period in which the Kings were a top-tier defensive team in the Western Conference.
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