Matt Villalta

Born in Kingston, Ontario on June 3, 1999, Matt Villalta was selected by the Los Angeles Kings in the third round of the 2017 NHL Entry Draft, 72nd overall. The 6'3", 190-pound left-catching goaltender has spent the bulk of his professional career developing in the Kings organization, primarily with the Ontario Reign of the American Hockey League, before the franchise rights transferred to the Utah Mammoth, for whom he is now a prospect. He currently backs up that NHL affiliation with the Tucson Roadrunners in the AHL.

At the NHL level, Villalta has appeared in three games, going 1-1-0 with a 3.64 goals-against average and a .867 save percentage across 131:58 of ice time.

Much of Villalta's documented professional development has taken place alongside Kings goaltending development coach Matt Millar with the Ontario Reign. In December 2021, InGoal Magazine documented one piece of that work: a game-day warm-up Villalta had built away from the static, stationary-shooter routines common at the professional level. "I used to do warm-ups starting off with just hands, a stationary shooter, the routine everybody does but I feel like you can kind of just go through the motions," Villalta explained. "So, I feel like incorporating a little more movement, getting a stick rotation in, really tracking down on the puck as a first drill, getting a little sweaty and then incorporating a few hand shots into the drill too." That warm-up routine — its two-part structure, its mechanical focus on tracking and stick position, and its connection to work Villalta had done alongside JF Berube and Cal Petersen — is detailed for InGoal members in a Pro Drills breakdown ^[1].

A second Pro Drills feature, published in January 2022, captured a different facet of Villalta's practice habits: a cross-ice one-timer drill he and Millar ran at the face-off dots using his goalie stick ^[2]. "That's a favorite part of my game is playing the puck, so I really enjoy it and it's something I work on a lot because any chance you get to help the boys out on the back end and break out is a huge plus," Villalta said. Millar's observations about how Villalta uses the flex and whip of his stick in that drill are available to InGoal subscribers in the full piece ^[2].

A third Pro Drills entry, from May 2023, focused on how Villalta manages three distinct types of traffic in front of the net during a late-season game-day session on the road with the Reign ^[3]. The drill, designed by Millar to combine net play mechanics, sight-line management, and read-and-react elements off a moving puck, is broken down in full for InGoal members ^[3].

Earlier in his tenure as a Kings prospect, Villalta appeared on episode 92 of the InGoal Radio podcast, presented by The Hockey Shop Source for Sports, alongside coverage of the CCM AXIS Chest and Arm Units ^[4]. InGoal Magazine has covered Matt Villalta in one podcast appearance and three drill breakdowns.