Postava Stops McDavid and Draisaitl for His First NHL Win, Hellebuyck Says He’s Ready
Plus: Devin Cooley and Jacob Fowler are two of the NHL's 3 Stars, the shortest shooter to beat the tallest goalie, Cam Johnson's seventh ECHL goaltender of the week award, and to close, Curtis Joseph's 400th win, 21 years ago today
In this edition 7 stories
NHL
Goalies of the week
Birthdays
Goalies in this edition 25 goalies
Every goalie named in this edition, from the NHL to junior and college.
NHL: Michal Postava (Detroit Red Wings), Jimmy Howard (Detroit Red Wings), Petr Mrazek (Detroit Red Wings), Connor Hellebuyck (New Jersey Devils), Stuart Skinner (Winnipeg Jets), Clay Stevenson (Winnipeg Jets), Nico Daws (Winnipeg Jets), Devin Cooley (Calgary Flames), Jacob Fowler (Montreal Canadiens), Cooper Black (Florida Panthers), Ben Bishop (Dallas Stars), Mikko Koskinen (Edmonton Oilers), Ed Belfour (Chicago Blackhawks), Curtis Joseph (Phoenix Coyotes), Martin Brodeur (New Jersey Devils), Harry Lumley (Detroit Red Wings), Jim Rutherford (Detroit Red Wings), Patrick Lalime (Buffalo Sabres), Patrick Desrochers (Carolina Hurricanes)
Junior: Trenten Bennett (Flint Firebirds), Benjamin Lelièvre (Blainville-Boisbriand Armada), Anthony Sciere (Omaha Lancers), Taylor Tabashniuk (Regina Pats)
International: Denis Sinyagin (Slavutich Smolensk)
+1 more, including Cam Johnson
NHLPostava stops McDavid, Draisaitl, and Nugent-Hopkins to win his first NHL start
Michal Postava drew Edmonton for his first NHL start, and he finished it by stopping all three Oilers in the shootout: Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Lucas Raymond scored the only shootout goal, and Detroit won 4-3 on Monday. Before that, Postava made 25 saves through regulation and overtime, the last on an Evan Bouchard wrist shot with nine seconds left in the extra period. The Red Wings trailed three times, and Dylan Larkin tied it at 18:34 of the third with Postava on the bench for an extra skater. “It’s amazing, I feel like a kid,” he said afterward (NHL.com).
Coach Todd McLellan liked what he saw in his reads: “He’s very athletic, we think he anticipates so well, he can read where the shot release is going.” Postava, 24, said he grew up watching the NHL on TV: “I watched all those NHL games when I was young, and I didn’t expect to one day be in the net and win the game.” He is the third Red Wings goalie in the past 25 years to win his first NHL start, after Jimmy Howard in 2005 and fellow Czech Petr Mrazek, who stopped 26 of 27 shots in St. Louis on Feb. 7, 2013 (The Canadian Press).
It was only his second NHL game. The undrafted Czech goalie made his debut in relief in Vancouver on Oct. 22, hours after an emergency recall and an early flight from Grand Rapids, as our Oct. 23 edition reported.
On InGoal: InGoal Radio Episode 105 with Jimmy Howard.
Updated 4:11 PM PT
NHLHellebuyck practises with the Devils and says he's "ready today"
Connor Hellebuyck was on the ice with New Jersey for the first time on Monday, a temporary Devils sticker on his mask, tracking pucks through traffic and handling the puck behind the net. “If you’re asking me, I’m ready today,” he said, while pointing out that he doesn’t make every decision. Coach Sheldon Keefe said the intent is to get him in during the three-game road trip that starts in Dallas on Tuesday and goes on to Colorado on Wednesday and Vegas on Friday, but medical and coaching checks remain: “We’ll have to take it a day at a time” (NHL.com). The trade and his first New Jersey media day ran in our Oct. 24 and Oct. 25 editions.
Keefe said on Tuesday that Hellebuyck makes his Devils debut that night in Dallas, according to Elliotte Friedman (below).
Elliotte Friedman filled in how the deal came together on Sportsnet’s 32 Thoughts podcast on Monday. In his account, Florida was the team Hellebuyck most wanted early on, Utah was involved for a time before backing out, Carolina pushed hard, and Buffalo’s talks hinged on draft picks. Another club told him Winnipeg felt much better about its goaltending than it had at the June draft, and that changed what the Jets were asking for. Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff described the same shift on the podcast’s Oct. 24 episode: Stuart Skinner picked Winnipeg in free agency, Clay Stevenson arrived on a waiver claim the day before the season opened, and the need for a goalie in return changed with them. Nico Daws came to Winnipeg in the trade. Cheveldayoff said he would choose to remember Hellebuyck’s years with the Jets and watching him develop through their minor-league system, and that he hopes to see him back at a future Heritage Classic in Winnipeg with his kids (32 Thoughts). The Devils play in Winnipeg on Nov. 10.
On InGoal: Connor Hellebuyck’s Pro Reads and The Unique Brilliance of Connor Hellebuyck.
(AI Photo illustration based on an InGoal file photo)
NHLCooley makes it four straight wins, and he and Fowler are two of the NHL's 3 Stars
Devin Cooley began Monday as the NHL’s second star of the week and ended it with a fourth straight win. He stopped 26 of 28 Toronto shots in Calgary’s 5-2 home win and set up Matvei Gridin’s power-play goal early in the second period, the second assist of his NHL career (NHL game center). His best stop came in the first period with the Flames killing a penalty and ahead 2-0: flat on his stomach, he got a skate on a Toronto chance to keep it that way (CalgaryFlames.com).
Calgary won one of its first seven games and has won all four since, each with Cooley in net. By InGoal’s count from the NHL box scores, he has stopped 126 of 132 shots in the four wins (.955), after the 100 of 104 through three in our Oct. 25 edition.
The league’s weekly honours had two goalies among the three. Cooley was the second star for stopping 66 of 68 shots in his two wins last week, and Montreal’s Jacob Fowler was the third, after going 2-0 with a .964 save percentage, including the Heritage Classic win our Oct. 26 edition led with. Leon Draisaitl was the first star (NHL.com).
On InGoal: Devin Cooley’s Pro Reads and InGoal Radio Episode 339 with Jacob Fowler.
NHLAround the league
- A listener question on Sportsnet’s 32 Thoughts asked about size. When 5-foot-9 Nick Robertson scored on 6-foot-9 Cooper Black in Black’s NHL debut on Oct. 22 (our Oct. 23 edition), the Penguins’ game-night staff found it was the first goal since 2018 by a shooter a foot or more shorter than the goalie; the last was David Desharnais on Ben Bishop. The record gap, Sportsnet Stats found, is 15 inches, and it belongs to 5-foot-4 Nathan Gerbe, who scored twice on Bishop and once on Mikko Koskinen, both 6-foot-7 (32 Thoughts).
- Another listener asked which goalies won in the most NHL buildings. Sportsnet Stats’ answer, counting outdoor and neutral-site games: Ed Belfour and Curtis Joseph with 51 each, one more than Martin Brodeur (32 Thoughts).
On InGoal: The Tallest Goalie in NHL History Uses a 24-Inch Paddle.
Goalies of the weekBennett, Tabashniuk, Lelièvre, Sciere, and Johnson
- OHL: Trenten Bennett, Flint Firebirds, 2-0 with a .955 save percentage: 35 saves in a shootout win over Saginaw on Friday, his first win as a Firebird, then the 29-save shutout of the Soo Greyhounds from our Oct. 26 edition.
- WHL: Taylor Tabashniuk, 19, Regina Pats, 37 saves on 39 shots in two wins. The first, 18 saves in a 6-0 win over Seattle on Oct. 21, was his first WHL shutout.
- QMJHL: Benjamin Lelièvre, 19, Blainville-Boisbriand Armada, named the league’s player of the week: 28 saves in a 4-3 overtime win over Rimouski, his first home win for the Armada, then the 34-save shutout in Gatineau from our Oct. 26 edition.
- USHL: Anthony Sciere, 19, Omaha Lancers, 73 saves on 75 shots in two games. The first, a career-high 43 saves at Sioux Falls on Oct. 23, was his first USHL shutout; he had three last season in the Ontario Junior Hockey League.
- ECHL: Cam Johnson, 32, Florida Everblades, 2-0 against Atlanta with a 1.01 goals-against average and a .952 save percentage, including a 17-save shutout. It is his seventh goaltender of the week award, tied for the third most in ECHL history, and he leads the league with four wins.
From the weekly releases of the OHL (via the Firebirds), WHL (via the Pats), QMJHL, USHL (via the Lancers), and ECHL.
On InGoal: Cam Johnson: How the Everblades Goalie Won His Fourth Kelly Cup in Five Years (Ep. 371).
HistoryCurtis Joseph's 400th NHL win, 21 years ago today
On this day in 2005, Curtis Joseph became the ninth goalie to win 400 NHL regular-season games. He did it at home in Glendale for the Phoenix Coyotes against Calgary, the team that had reached the Stanley Cup Final the last time the NHL played, and the Flames didn’t make him work for it: they put 15 shots on him, and he stopped 13. It stayed 2-2 until Mike Comrie scored his second of the night with under a minute and a half to play, and Phoenix won 3-2 (hockeygoalies.org; saves from the NHL’s game page). He finished with 454 wins, and as the Around the league item above notes, he won in 51 different NHL buildings, tied with Ed Belfour for the most.
Also on Oct. 27
- 1948: Hall of Famer Harry Lumley earned his 100th regular-season win, for Detroit at the Rangers, the 15th goalie to get there by the NHL’s current totals.
- 1979: Jim Rutherford played his 400th regular-season game, for Detroit in Montreal.
- 2008: Patrick Lalime played his 400th regular-season game, for Buffalo against his old team, Ottawa.
- 2016: Petr Mrazek played his 100th NHL game and won it, with 31 saves for Detroit in St. Louis. Three years earlier he had won his first NHL start, as Postava did on Monday.
- 2025: Denis Sinyagin of Slavutich Smolensk scored a goal in Belarus’s top league, an empty-netter in a 3-1 win over Dinamo-Molodechno, according to Lenta.ru.
The NHL game details in this list come from the NHL’s game records at NHL Records.
BirthdaysDesrochers
Happy birthday to former Phoenix Coyotes and Carolina Hurricanes goalie Patrick Desrochers (47). Born on this day: Hall of Famer Hughie Lehman (1885) of the Vancouver Millionaires.
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