Ullmark Hurt in His NHL-Leading Seventh Win, Quentin Miller’s .976 NCAA Start

NHLCarolina's new Hellebuyck offer leaves out Nikishin, Friedman says

The Hurricanes have reworked their offer for Connor Hellebuyck. On Thursday’s 32 Thoughts podcast, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said a couple of people told him on Wednesday that Carolina’s current proposal to Winnipeg no longer includes defenceman Alexander Nikishin, who had been the sticking point in earlier talks. Carolina is still interested, Friedman said, though if the Jets loved the new offer, the trade would already be done. He believes Buffalo and Utah are also still in the running. He added that under general manager Eric Tulsky, Carolina bargains rather than opening with its best offer, but when the Hurricanes tell a team it is time to decide, they mean it (32 Thoughts: The Podcast, from about 34:40; Elliotte Friedman on X).

The timing matters. Hellebuyck, who confirmed his trade request on Aug. 27, has been suspended by the Jets since Sept. 16, when he did not report to training camp, and Sportsnet has reported that the suspension ends Friday. The winner of the 2024-25 Hart Trophy and three Vezinas is in the third season of a seven-year contract worth $8.5 million a year (NHL.com).

On InGoal: Connor Hellebuyck’s Pro Reads and The Unique Brilliance of Connor Hellebuyck.

Updated 7:28 AM PT

NHLCooper Black set for his NHL debut in Pittsburgh

Cooper Black is expected to make his NHL debut for the Panthers on Thursday night in Pittsburgh, with Jacob Markstrom sidelined for possibly a couple of weeks, George Richards reported for Florida Hockey Now. Florida hasn’t had a goalie debut since Spencer Knight on April 20, 2021, and at 6-foot-8, the 25-year-old will be among the NHL’s tallest players. Black went undrafted out of Dartmouth. He first came to a Panthers development camp as a junior three years ago, signed with Florida after his senior year, and split his first pro season between AHL Charlotte and ECHL Savannah before taking over as Charlotte’s starter last season.

“At the end of the day, it’s an NHL game and that’s what everyone strives for. It’s what everyone dreams of as a little kid,” Black said before the trip. Coach Paul Maurice liked his preseason: “He moves like an athlete. There is some power to what he does,” Maurice said. “Now is the time for him to get one of these games” (Florida Hockey Now; George Richards on X).

On InGoal: Episode 352: Florida Panthers prospect Cooper Black.

NHLAround the league

• Dan Vladar stopped 27 of 28 shots on Wednesday, 16 of them in the first period, and Philadelphia won 3-1 in Buffalo for its third win in a row and its first in Buffalo since Nov. 3, 2023. He turned Jack Quinn away twice after the Sabres pulled their goalie, and the only goal against him came on a power play with 35 seconds left in the second. It was his second straight win, and he has a 1.30 goals-against average and a .953 save percentage in his last three starts (NBC Sports Philadelphia).
• Seattle’s Joey Daccord posted a new video on Wednesday that takes viewers through his whole off-season mobility routine. Much of it looks unusual, he admitted: “There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, and that’s the beauty of it!” (Joey Daccord on X, below).
• Inc. magazine has taken Devin Cooley‘s words from Sunday’s 34-save win over Carolina well beyond hockey. Author Justin Bariso used the Flames goalie’s postgame description of turning from a “conscious” goalie into an “unconscious” one as a lesson in neuroscience, psychology and emotional intelligence. “If you ask me how I made a save, I have no idea,” Cooley said. “Just my unconscious brain does it. And that’s what you work in practice for” (Inc.).

On InGoal: Pro Tips: Managing Your Game and a New Coach and Joey Daccord’s Pro Reads.

AHLAugustine follows his first pro win with 30 saves against Manitoba

Trey Augustine made 30 saves on Wednesday as the Grand Rapids Griffins beat the Manitoba Moose 4-3 at home, among them a first-period breakaway stop on Danny Zhilkin. It was his second win of the season (Grand Rapids Griffins). The first came four days earlier in Rockford, his first as a pro: 27 saves on 29 shots in a 4-2 win, including a dive to his right post to take away Nick Lardis’s one-timer with his left pad in the last two minutes, and another stop on Lardis with 30 seconds to go (Griffins via OurSports Central).

Augustine, 21, was born in South Lyon, Michigan, and the Red Wings drafted him in the second round, 41st overall, in 2023. He won 66 games in three seasons at Michigan State (Grand Rapids Griffins). In a clip posted on X by Elaine Shircliff (below), he talks about what he has had to change in his game going from college to the AHL, and about the trust he has in the Griffins’ defence.

On InGoal: InGoal Radio Episode 241 with Trey Augustine.

CoachesJustin Peters signs on again as Ottawa's goaltending coach

The goaltending coach behind Ullmark’s start has a new deal too. Justin Peters signed a new contract with the Senators on Monday, along with assistants Nolan Baumgartner, Ben Sexton, and Mike Yeo, on the day Travis Green signed a contract that keeps him behind Ottawa’s bench through 2030-31 (NHL.com). Peters has run Ottawa’s goaltending since January 2024, when the Senators promoted him from their AHL affiliate in Belleville, where he had coached the goalies since 2021 (Ottawa Sun). Before coaching, the Hurricanes’ 2004 second-round pick played 83 NHL games over parts of seven seasons with Carolina, Washington and Arizona, and went 25-38-9 (NHL.com).

CollegeQuentin Miller's .976 start, and NHL.com's NCAA goalies to watch

Quentin Miller has been hard to beat since he moved from Denver to Western Michigan: four starts, four wins, two shutouts, a 0.50 goals-against average, and a .976 save percentage. Notre Dame scored once on him in two games last weekend. The Montreal Canadiens, his hometown team, took him in the fourth round (128th) in 2023, and an injury slowed his first season at Denver (NHL.com). His first start for the Broncos, a 26-save shutout of Ferris State, was in our Oct. 9 edition.

Miller is one of 10 goalies in Mark Divver’s NCAA notebook for NHL.com. Michigan’s Jack Ivankovic, a Nashville second-round pick, is 6-0 for the top-ranked Wolverines, and his 1,000th NCAA save was in our Oct. 17 edition. Providence sophomore Jack Parsons, whom Winnipeg drafted in the seventh round in June, is 2-0 with a .966 and a shutout, and Boston University’s Mikhail Yegorov, a New Jersey second-rounder, is 3-1 with a .956 and a shutout. The list also has Wisconsin’s Alexis Cournoyer, North Dakota’s Jan Spunar, Northeastern’s Lawton Zacher, Denver’s Johnny Hicks, last spring’s Frozen Four Most Outstanding Player, and the two Sharks prospects from yesterday’s edition, Christian Kirsch and Joshua Ravensbergen (NHL.com).

On InGoal: Johnny Hicks: From the Bench to NCAA Champion and Frozen Four MVP (Ep. 365) and InGoal Radio Episode 354 with Joshua Ravensbergen.

U SPORTSPatrick Leaver stops 45 as StFX wins in a shootout at UPEI

Patrick Leaver faced 47 shots on Wednesday in Charlottetown and stopped 45 of them, and StFX beat UPEI 3-2 in a shootout. The Panthers outshot the X-Men 18-8 in the first period and 47-30 overall, scoring on a power play and again with 1:05 left in regulation, but Leaver held them there through overtime and stopped two of their four shooters. It was his first win of the season, he was named the game’s first star, and StFX is 3-0-1 (U SPORTS box score).

HistoryNoora Räty plays in Finland's men's Mestis, 12 years ago today

On this day in 2014, Noora Räty played her first game in Mestis, the second tier of Finnish men’s hockey, for Kiekko-Vantaa against SaPKo. She made 31 saves in a 5-1 loss and became the first Finnish woman to play a game in the league, Yle reported. Her own review afterwards was short: “I still need a little bit more quickness” (Yle). She was also the first woman to play goal there. By then she had won two NCAA titles with Minnesota, in 2012 and 2013, set Division I career records for wins (114) and shutouts (43), and won Olympic bronze with Finland in 2010; a second bronze followed in PyeongChang in 2018 (Wikipedia).

Also on Oct. 22

• 1971: Ken Dryden stopped all 28 shots in Vancouver for his first NHL shutout, in his first full season with Montreal.
• 1999: Grant Fuhr became the sixth goalie to win 400 NHL games, making 29 saves as Calgary won 3-2 in overtime in Florida, according to the AP recap on ESPN.
• 1999: Mike Torchia scored a goal for the UHL’s Mohawk Valley Prowlers, according to hockeygoalies.org.
• 2019: Tuukka Rask played his 500th NHL game, a 28-save Boston win over Toronto.

The other NHL game details in this list come from the NHL’s game records at NHL Records.

On InGoal: InGoal Radio Episode 48 with Noora Räty and Frederik Andersen, Power Within II: Noora Räty on her mental approach, and Pro Tips: why Tuukka Rask uses shin-on-post for reverse VH.

BirthdaysTugnutt

Happy birthday to former Ottawa Senators and Quebec Nordiques goalie Ron Tugnutt (59).

Have goalie news, a big save, a signing, or a coaching hire? Send it to news@ingoalmag.com.