Dylan Garand

Dylan Garand made his NHL debut with the New York Rangers on March 22, and when the call finally came, it was the product of years spent in the rink in Kamloops, British Columbia — skating laps alone, working on edges, and waiting for the opportunity that the organization had envisioned when they selected him in the fourth round of the 2020 NHL Draft.

Born in Victoria, British Columbia on June 7, 2002, Garand grew up to become a product of the WHL's Kamloops Blazers, where he worked closely with goalie coach Dan De Palma — a coach who has also guided Canada's World Junior and under-18 programs. That relationship has remained central to Garand's development as a professional. Through his NHL data, the outlines of a career arc are just beginning to take shape: through three games in 2025-26, his first NHL appearances, Garand owns a 2-0-1 record, a 1.62 goals-against average, and a .948 save percentage across 185 minutes of ice time.

The Rangers selected Garand 10th overall in the fourth round of the 2020 draft, and he has spent his professional seasons developing within the organization's system while waiting for sustained opportunity at the top level. That path included a significant detour in the summer of 2024, when Hockey Canada called and invited him to the World Championship — an experience he described in detail on Episode 320 of the InGoal Radio Podcast ^[1]. He was, as he told host Kevin Woodley, the only American Hockey League player on the roster. "It kind of just happened all of a sudden one day," Garand said on that episode. "Got a phone call like, hey, like, they want you to play. And like, for me, like, I consider like an NHL tournament, like, it's pretty rare." ^[1]

The tournament placed him alongside Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, and goalies Marc-André Fleury and Jordan Binnington — and what he took away from each of them shapes the episode's most compelling stretches ^[1]. On Binnington specifically, Garand spoke about the meaningful conversations the veteran shared, including his thought process on the ice and how he processes the emotional weight of losses. "Off the ice, like, unbelievable human being," Garand said. "He's a special guy for sure." ^[1] Of Fleury, whom Garand backed up in one of the tournament's games, he noted what it was like to watch the veteran compete in practice: "Fleury competes so hard on every puck, especially on Sid too." ^[1]

The episode also traces the arc of Garand's professional development more broadly — the mental tools he has built to handle the ups and downs of a position defined by uncertainty, the smiley face he drew on his stick during a two-month stretch in his second pro season when the wins stopped coming, and the lesson he took from Benoit Allaire early in his time with the Rangers organization: that Henrik Lundqvist told Allaire he felt good in perhaps two or three of every ten games, and simply found a way in the rest ^[1]. The full conversation — one of the more detailed goaltending development discussions InGoal has published — is available at ^[1].

Garand's offseason routine has become a subject of sustained InGoal coverage. InGoal Magazine traveled to Kamloops last summer and filmed close to an hour of footage from his skating sessions, capturing the edge work and movement patterns that De Palma and Garand have refined over years together. The first installment of that drill series ^[2] focuses on the warm-up and blue-line edge work that opens Garand's summer routine — including drills he learned from Calgary Flames goaltender Dustin Wolf while the two skated together over consecutive summers. The piece details his inside-edge work, c-cut sequences, and the specific cues he's developed over time, including keeping the chin down and the foot under the body to maintain balance through each push.

Part two of that series ^[3] adds pucks to the routine, moving into crease-movement patterns at center ice that Garand and De Palma developed from the skating foundations they built during his Blazers years. Garand's own words run through the breakdown: "Positioning stops pucks, and the number one way to get to position is skating. Skating is the most important part of the game. The best goalies are the best skaters." ^[3] Both drill pieces are available to InGoal members and offer a granular look at the specific mechanics and cues behind his work.

Garand also appeared on InGoal Radio in 2022 ^[4] and in a joint podcast episode with Devon Levi in January 2021 ^[5], earlier touchpoints in his development that predate his professional career. The foundation for much of what he has built was also on display in a December 2020 InGoal article featuring De Palma's presentation on managing traffic and screens from the WHL/Hockey Canada Goaltending Symposium — a session that De Palma built around video clips that Garand himself selected ^[6].

InGoal Magazine has covered Dylan Garand in three podcast appearances, two drill breakdowns, and one InGoal article.