Kochetkov Wins His First 10 Starts, Tomkins and Brossoit End 2½-Year NHL Waits

NHLTomkins and Brossoit end 2½-year waits for a win on the same night

Neither Matt Tomkins nor Laurent Brossoit had won an NHL game since April 2024. On Sunday, they both did. By InGoal’s count from their game logs, Tomkins last won on April 17, 2024, for Tampa Bay against Toronto, and Brossoit one night later, for Winnipeg against Vancouver. That makes it 928 days between wins for Tomkins and 927 for Brossoit.

Tomkins, 32, grew up in Edmonton and made his first start for the Oilers at Madison Square Garden, on the second night of a back-to-back, with Devon Levi hurt. He gave up one goal, to Pavel Dorofeyev, then turned away the next 10 shots, including all eight in the third period, for 27 saves in a 4-1 win. It was only his seventh NHL game (NHL.com).

Chicago took him in the seventh round in 2012. Since then he has gone from the ECHL’s Indy Fuel to the Olympics with Canada in 2022, with stops in Rockford, Sweden, Tampa Bay, Syracuse, and Bakersfield along the way. “To start there in Indy and end up here today, it’s been a lot of fun,” he said. “The thing about goaltending is unlike any other position, you have an opportunity way later in your career,” coach Mike Babcock said, adding, “If you’re just a hard worker and you keep getting better, who says you can’t play?” Connor McDavid saw the work: “Dude worked so hard this summer in Edmonton, and I’m just so happy for him” (Oilers).

On InGoal Radio in January, he called signing with the Oilers a “dream situation”: “Obviously, amazing to be able to sign with your hometown team.”

Brossoit, 33, missed all of 2024-25 with an injury, and Anaheim called him up from San Diego on Saturday (Ducks). In his first start for the Ducks, the Senators built a three-goal lead before Anaheim answered with six straight goals, and he finished with 19 saves in a 6-3 win. “I was hoping it wouldn’t take years in between wins, personally, but here we are,” he told Zach Cavanagh of The Sporting Tribune. “It feels amazing, no matter how you shake it up” (The Sporting Tribune). Coach Joel Quenneville expects to carry all three of his goalies on the coming road trip: “In the short term, I see us going on the (upcoming three-game road) trip with three goalies and see how it goes” (NHL.com).

On InGoal: InGoal Radio Episode 337 with Matt Tomkins and Connor Ungar, and Laurent Brossoit’s Pro Reads.

NHLFowler is the league's rookie of the month, the first Canadien since Price

Jacob Fowler went 7-1-0 in October with a 1.84 goals-against average, a .932 save percentage, and two shutouts, and on Sunday the NHL named him its rookie of the month. No Montreal goalie had won the award since Carey Price in March 2008. The seven wins tie the NHL’s mark for a rookie goalie in one October, shared by Michal Neuvirth, Ed Belfour, and Jacques Plante. (NHL.com).

On InGoal: Episode 339 with Jacob Fowler.

NHLAround the league

• Washington picked up Rémi Poirier from New Jersey on Sunday for a 2027 seventh-round pick. The 25-year-old from Farnham, Quebec, had 27 wins for AHL Texas last season, second in the league, while facing more shots than any other AHL goalie. New Jersey had claimed him off waivers from Dallas on Sept. 27 (Capitals).
• NHL.com’s Amalie Benjamin looks at what Michael DiPietro went through to reach his first NHL win and shutout, both last month with Boston. His mother, Rebecca, passed away of breast cancer in 2004, when he was 5, and at his lowest point in the pros he thought about walking away. A stint in the ECHL turned that around: “I fell in love with the game again down in Maine.” Read: NHL.com.
• Jesper Wallstedt was first star of Minnesota’s 5-1 win in Washington on Sunday, stopping 26 of 27 shots, including Alex Tuch one-on-one after a turnover (NHL.com).

On InGoal: InGoal Radio Episode 298 with Michael DiPietro.

AHLTaylor Gauthier stops all 43 for a career high against Hershey

Hershey outshot Wilkes-Barre/Scranton 43-16 on Sunday and lost 5-0. Taylor Gauthier made 15 saves in the first period and 19 in the third at GIANT Center for a career-high 43, in the first of the 12 games the rivals play this season. It was the Penguins’ first shutout of the season and the third of his AHL career (Penguins). “And we just couldn’t bury it past [Gauthier],” Bears coach Derek King said (Bears).

Gauthier, 25, is from Calgary and came up through the ECHL’s Wheeling Nailers, Pittsburgh’s affiliate there, where he was the league’s goaltender of the week in March 2025 (Nailers).

CollegeCroteau blanks Alaska twice as Dartmouth sweeps in the NCAA

Canadiens prospect Emmett Croteau gave Alaska nothing in two games at Thompson Arena. He stopped all 13 shots in Saturday’s 6-0 Dartmouth win and all 28 on Sunday in a 4-0 win, 12 of them in the first period (College Hockey News box score).

On InGoal: Montreal Canadiens Prospect Emmett Croteau (Ep. 362).

U SPORTSRivard-Coulombe stops 49 of 50 in a double-overtime shootout win

Concordia outshot McGill 50-31 on Sunday, and only one puck beat Jade Rivard-Coulombe, on a power play late in the second period. Chloe Blanchard tied it for the Martlets in the third, two overtimes settled nothing, and Mia Giles had the only goal of the shootout (U SPORTS box score).

Around U SPORTS

• Dylan Meilun stopped 38 of 42 in Carleton’s 5-4 overtime win over Concordia on Sunday (U SPORTS box score).

InternationalSaarinen and Ancicka in Finland and Germany

Around Europe

• Kim Saarinen, 20, a Seattle Kraken draft pick (third round, 2024), stopped all 25 shots in HPK’s 3-0 win at Tappara on Sunday in Finland’s Liiga (Liiga).
• Tobias Ancicka earned his second shutout of the season in the Augsburger Panther’s 4-0 win at the Grizzlys Wolfsburg on Sunday in Germany’s DEL (PENNY DEL).

JuniorMichael Newlove, 19, gets three straight shutouts, the first in the OHL since DiPietro in 2016

Three games, 81 shots, no goals. Windsor Spitfires goalie Michael Newlove stopped all 27 from Erie on Oct. 29 and all 24 from Owen Sound on Saturday, the two shutouts in our Oct. 30 and Nov. 1 editions, then all 30 on Sunday in a 3-0 win at Brampton, where he was first star (AM800). The OHL says nobody in the league had done it since another Spitfire, Michael DiPietro, from Dec. 8 to 11, 2016. It’s the fifth shutout of Newlove’s OHL career (OHL).

Notable performances in the CHL

• WHL: Calgary’s Aidan Hesse, 18, was first star of a 3-2 shootout loss to Kamloops on Sunday after stopping 45 of 47 (WHL game report).
• QMJHL: Baie-Comeau’s Mathias Hernandez, 19, was first star with 36 saves on 38 shots in a 5-2 win at Québec on Sunday (QMJHL game report).
• WHL: Lethbridge’s Leif Oaten, 17, stopped 38 of 41 in a 6-3 win at Regina on Sunday, also first star (WHL game report).
• OHL: Kingston’s Royden Smith, 17, earned his first career shutout with 12 saves in a 5-0 win over Brantford on Sunday (OHL).

HistoryEd Giacomin comes back to Madison Square Garden as a Red Wing

On this day in 1975, a crowd at Madison Square Garden cheered against its own team. Days earlier, the Rangers had put Ed Giacomin on waivers after a decade in New York, and Detroit had claimed him. His first game for the Red Wings was at the Garden. At 36, he took the ice in their red to chants of his name that peaked before the anthem, and with his mask off the emotion was plain to see. Fans booed when the Rangers scored on him. He made 42 saves in a 6-4 Detroit win. Steve Vickers apologized to him for a late power-play goal, and Giacomin told him, “Don’t worry about it, you’re just doing your job.” Said Rangers defenseman Brad Park: “Eddie didn’t beat us as a goaltender, he beat us by his presence” (Rangers).

He won the Vezina Trophy in 1971, sharing it with Gilles Villemure, went into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1987, and saw the Rangers retire his No. 1 in 1989 (Wikipedia).

Also on Nov. 2

• 1943: Hall of Famer Bill Durnan won his first NHL game, for Montreal against the Rangers.
• 2001: Chris Osgood played his 400th regular-season game, 26 saves for the Islanders in Detroit.
• 2006: Niklas Backstrom of Minnesota came on for an ill Manny Fernandez after the first period and stopped all 19 Vancouver shots in a 5-2 win. It was his second NHL win, and he still hadn’t started a game, the first goalie to do that in the modern era, which the NHL counts from 1943-44 (NHL.com, AP via ESPN). By InGoal’s count from the NHL’s game records, nobody has done it since, nobody has reached three, and the records show nobody doing it before 1943-44 either. Count playoffs, though, and Bob Champoux got there first: his NHL debut was a 1964 playoff win for Detroit in relief of an injured Terry Sawchuk, and his second win came in relief for California in December 1973, two days before his first NHL start. Hat tip to Mike Commito, who flagged it on X today.
• 2010: Jean-Sébastien Giguère played his 500th regular-season game, 21 saves for Toronto against Ottawa.
• 2017: Semyon Varlamov made 57 saves in a Colorado win over Carolina, tied for the 13th-most in a regular-season game since saves were first counted in 1955-56.
• 2023: Jake Allen played his 400th regular-season game, 32 saves for Montreal in Arizona.
• 2024: Petr Mrazek played his 400th regular-season game and won it, 37 saves for Chicago in Los Angeles.

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

On InGoal: Episode 40 with Chris Osgood, Episode 62 with Semyon Varlamov, and Episode 219 with Niklas Backstrom.

BirthdaysHeeter

Happy birthday to former Philadelphia Flyers goalie Calvin Heeter (38).

New on InGoalJohn Snesar is still in goal at 93

For Goalie Day, Kevin Woodley tells the story of John Snesar, who plays goal twice a week at 93. It started in 1945 with two Quaker Oats box tops and 25 cents, which brought a signed photo of Turk Broda that he still owns. Read: From Quaker Oats to the Crease at 93: John Snesar’s 80-Year Love of Goaltending.

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