Yesterday, there was a deadline for the Tampa Bay Lightning to extend a bona fide offer to goaltending prospect Nick Malik to retain his draft rights. The 22-year-old netminder was drafted by the Lightning in the fifth round of the 2022 draft and has spent the last couple of seasons playing for KooKoo in the Liiga. The deadline came and went without an offer, thus making Malik an unrestricted free agent.
It wasn’t likely that the Bolts were going to sign him as earlier this month he had signed a two-year contract with HC Plzen in his native Czechia, but there was always a chance that Tampa Bay would toss him an offer just to keep him in the system. That proved not to be the case and it looks like, for at least the near future, his path with the organization has come to an end.
While having a mid-round prospect choose to play in Europe rather than stay in the organization isn’t the end of the world, it does highlight a minor issue with the Lightning and their affiliates. With Hugo Alnefelt reportedly heading to HV71 in the Swedish league, As of right now, they don’t have a true prospect under contract playing in Tampa, Syracuse, or Orlando.
Granted, with Andrei Vasilevskiy still among the top goalies in the NHL and under contract for another four seasons, it’s not a cause for immediate concern, but it’s still a bit troubling. They are set at the NHL level next season with Jonas Johansson under contract for the 2024-25 season to serve as Vasy’s back-up so Mr. BriseBois doesn’t have to add a goaltender to his summer shopping list. The Crunch should have a solid duo in their net as Matt Tomkins will also be finishing off the two-year deal he signed last summer while Brandon Halverson has another year left on his AHL deal that he signed in August.
Halverson (28-years-old) and Tomkins (29-years-old) are fine goaltenders, but they’re not exactly prospects. That leaves the Bolts without any true prospects in net as they enter the summer. In Orlando, it was Evan Fitzpatrick (who will be a free agent) and Colten Ellis, who was on loan from the St. Louis Blues organization, that finished off the season after Halverson was called up to Syracuse for good. So, the Lightning don’t have anyone stashed with the Solar Bears.
It is something they could (and should) address at the upcoming draft. Despite only having four picks, and none until the fourth round, they can find some value in the middle rounds, and as mentioned before, they have time to let someone develop at either the college or junior level.
Oddly enough, under Julien BriseBois, the Lightning have yet to draft a goaltender from either the juniors or college level. They’ve selected three netminders under his watch and they’ve all been from Europe or Russia. Alnefelt (3rd round, 2019) was drafted out of the Swedish system, Malik (5th round, 2022) was playing the Liiga, and Amir Miftakhov (6th round, 2020) came out of the Russian junior system. All three have since recrossed the Atlantic.
Other somewhat recently drafted goaltenders that are no longer in the system include Magnus Chrona, Ty Taylor, and Connor Ingram. Of all the netminders mentioned so far, Ingram has emerged as a legitimate NHL starter as he went 23-21-3 with a .907 SV% and 2.91 GAA for the Arizona Coyotes last season. However, it wasn’t until after he left the organization that his upward trajectory really took off.
It’s not an overly strong draft class for goaltenders this summer, but that could work in the Lightning’s favor as some decent prospects like over-ager Lukas Matecha will still be around when they submit their pick. The important question will be if they can actually develop any goaltenders that they draft. Outside of Vasilevskiy, it’s not like they have a solid record of bringing netminders through their system.
If you want to have some fun, take a look at the career stats with the Lightning for the 29 goaltenders that they’ve selected since their first draft in 1992. Andrei Vasilevskiy has put up hall-of-fame numbers since being selected in the first round of the 2012 draft with 293 wins in 477 career regular season games. So, who do you think is second among Lightning drafted goalies in games played for the team?
No Googling….
I’ll give you a couple of more minutes…
Turn over your answers.
Did you have Karri Ramo? The Finn was a 6th-round pick in 2004 and appeared in 48 games with 11 wins in a Lightning uniform. After Ramo you have to go all the way back to the 1995 draft where they selected Zac Bierk and his 26 games played for the Lightning. Scouting goaltenders might be one of the hardest jobs in sports, but for an organization that has made its bones on finding diamonds in the rough for every other position on the ice, it’s a pretty tough look.
Could it be that, with Vasilevskiy in net for the long haul, it just hasn’t been a focus for the scouts over recent years? Possibly, but at some point they do have to start planning for the future. While it seems Vasy is fully recovered from his back surgery last season, and will have a full summer to train, he is now officially a goaltender with a history of back issues. That’s never great (see Puppa, Daren). Now is the time to start thinking about who the next Lightning goaltender will be.
For a while, it seemed like Alnefelt might have been the answer. After a bit of a rushed start to his North American career, it seemed like he was on the path to join the Lightning as a back-up in the 2025-26 season. However, injuries and inconsistency prevented him from grabbing the reigns as the de facto number one starter in Syracuse and by the end of the season, Halverson was the choice in net in the post season with Tomkins in Tampa.
Alnefelt is still just 22-years-old and the Lightning, as long as they tender him a qualifying offer, will retain his rights if he does head back to Sweden. So there could be a chance that his time in the organization will continue and the trip back to Europe is a chance to get him some playing time and reset his development a bit.
There are a lot more pressing concerns for the Lightning this summer, but at some point they are going to have to address the goaltending position. Andrei Vasilevskiy won’t be there forever and they need to figure out what their plan will be when he leaves the ice to take his spot in the hall of fame.
