Voting for this season's LGT MVP Award is open, and there are five nominees for you to choose from in the first round. We take a look at one of two goalies in contention for the title, and the only one still with a hope of lifting the European trophy next month.

Marek Mazanec, 28, is in his first season playing goal for Mountfield HK and his first season back in the Czech Extraliga after spending the last six years abroad in the NHL, AHL and KHL. Most notably, he played 31 games for the Nashville Predators between 2013 and 2017.

This season, he has been Mountfield’s workhorse between the pipes, starting 31 of 32 Extraliga games and playing all but 103 minutes of his team’s minutes. In the Champions Hockey League, he has been just as busy, starting nine of Mountfield’s 10 games – only Johan Mattsson of the Frölunda Indians has tended goal for so many CHL games this season. He leads the CHL with 219 saves, and he’s one of four netminders to post two shutouts this season.

It has been in the Playoff rounds where Mazanec has really stood out. In both the Round of 16 against Adler Mannheim and in the Quarter-Finals against EV Zug he allowed only one goal on aggregate – only two goals against in 240 minutes of hockey. It isn’t a stretch at all to say that Mountfield would not be in the CHL Semi-Finals if not for the goaltending of Mazanec.