The Anaheim Ducks and general manager Pat Verbeek crossed a sizable item off of their summer agenda on Thursday when they signed goaltender Lukas Dostal to a five-year contract that carries an AAV of $6.5 million.
“It’s a big honor,” Dostal said when addressing the media following the announcement of his signing. “I always look at myself in the mirror, and I see a kid who came from a village with 300 people in it. It’s always a good reminder that you have a dream and you want to chase it. There’s always the possibility to reach it. It’s a big milestone, but there’s a long way ahead of us. We have an amazing team.”
Dostal followed up an impressive rookie season in 2023-24 with an even better sophomore season in 2024-25, in which he solidified himself as the unquestioned number one goaltender in Anaheim for the foreseeable future.
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Dostal, along with John Gibson, was part of potentially the best goaltending tandem in the NHL in 2024-25, and the pair was the most impactful contributing factor to the Ducks’ 21-point jump in the standings from the year prior.
He finished the season with 49 starts and appeared in 54 games. He posted a .903 SV%, stopped 10.28 goals above expected, and tallied his first career shutout.
If Dostal hadn’t already seized control of the starter’s job in Anaheim, the trading of John Gibson in late June put any and all doubt to rest. Dostal will now head a goaltending group featuring himself, veteran and fellow Czech countryman Petr Mrazek, and Ville Husso. The latter two will likely battle for the backup role, and each will likely get NHL games in 2025-26 with the Ducks.
With his new contract in place, Dostal will carry dramatically increased responsibility and expectations on his shoulders as the Ducks have stated their intended goal for the upcoming season is to make the 2026 playoffs.
“I truly believe it. It was one of the reasons that I was willing to sign a long-term deal,” he said when asked about the outlook of the organization. “It’s always about trusting the process, and I really trust the process of what’s going on in Anaheim right now. It’s very exciting for the future.”
Now that Dostal has received the baton from Gibson as the goaltender who will backstop the Ducks’ hopeful transition from rebuilding team to contending team, a figurative statement was made league-wide that he’s “the guy” now in Anaheim, and with that, he won’t sneak up on anyone. He is no longer a “no-name goalie," he will start more games than he ever has, and he will face the toughest opponents on the Ducks' schedule.
With his $6.5 million cap hit, Dostal is now the tenth-highest-paid goaltender in the NHL. He’s still making considerably less than the tier above him that features Juuse Saros ($7.74 million) and the four goaltenders each making $8.25 million: Ilya Sorokin, Jeremy Swayman, Jake Oettinger, and Linus Ullmark. However, he now leads the next tier of highest-paid goaltenders, which includes more experienced veterans like Gibson ($6.4 million), Adin Hill ($6.25 million), and Jacob Markstrom ($6 million).
Dostal’s demeanor is as poised as they come, something even more impressive considering he just turned 25 years old less than a month ago, and he’s never expressed the slightest indication of being rattled, on or off the ice.
After a blazing hot start in 2024-25, where he was near or at the top of the NHL in every goaltending statistic, his numbers wavered as the season became longer and longer. That could either be attributed to fatigue after playing the most hockey in his life, or to uncertainty and inability to reestablish a rhythm with Gibson’s seesaw battle with injury reserve last season.
Dostal is now 121 games into his NHL career and carries a career .902 SV%, a 42-58-13 record, and two shutouts. He’s sharp on his angles in the crease, and he has full trust in them. He never swims amid flurries in front of him, remaining square to pucks in tight at all times.
His most underrated quality is his ability to track pucks throughout the zone and through traffic. Though he’s a sound, fundamental goaltender, he can flash an occasional, yet remarkable athletic save when it’s necessary and shift the momentum of a game.
Dostal’s understanding of the NHL game has improved dramatically, and he’s now displaying veteran game-management skills, reading the ice in front of him and the progression of play, freezing pucks when his teammates need a whistle or advancing pucks when opposing teams are changing or tired.
Dostal plays his best hockey when it matters most, which to this point has been for Czechia on the international stage. He was named as one of the first six players added to his home country’s Olympic roster. Still, he and the Ducks will also be looking to play meaningful games well after the Olympic tournament has concluded in February.
With this new deal and the departure of Gibson, the crease in Anaheim belongs solely to Lukas Dostal. He’s been burdened with a tremendous amount of pressure, but he’s evaded the pitfalls of that pressure in the past, and this situation seems to be no different. He’s poised to make the jump into the club of the NHL’s truly elite goaltenders this upcoming season.
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Photo Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
Former Hershey Bears forward Pierrick Dube has signed a one-year deal in Russia with Traktor Chelyabinsk, it was announced earlier this week.
Dube, whose 2024-25 season was his second in the Washington Capitals organization, spent the entire year with the Bears. Over 58 regular season games, he scored 19 goals and added 21 assists for 40 points. With the Bears having made the playoffs, Dube put up three points in eight games.
Over his brief professional career in the Caps system, Dube did manage to make his NHL debut in 2023-24, but he went pointless in three games. Prior to making the jump to the pro game full time, Dube played in the QMJHL with the Quebec Remparts, Chicoutimi Sagueneens and the Shawinigan Cataractes.
With Dube off to the KHL, he could still realistically earn another opportunity to play in the NHL. Having proven to be a productive in the AHL, Dube has the skills needed to be a top-tier player in the KHL and draw the interest of NHL teams come next off-season.
The 2009-10 season was a magical one for the Montreal Canadiens. It was a special year, the one in which the team celebrated its centennial, the first NHL team to do so. Special jerseys, the unveiling of the Ring of Honour, and a centennial game against the Boston Bruins, which the Habs won 5-1.
Still, it wasn’t an easy season. GM Bob Gainey had made significant changes during the offseason, trading for Scott Gomez with the New York Rangers` and then letting long-standing captain Saku Koivu and enigmatic sniper Alexei Kovalev walk in free agency. On July 1, he signed a slew of free agents; Jaroslav Spacek, Hal Gill, Mike Cammalleri, Brian Gionta, and now New York Islanders GM Mathieu Darche all arrived. Paul Mara and Travis Moen signed on July 10.
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Patrice Brisebois retired, Mathieu Schneider left for a second time, and Alex Tanguay signed elsewhere in August, just like Francis Bouillon. With that spectacular lineup overhaul, it took some time to build chemistry, and the Canadiens barely made the playoffs. However, once they were in, they inflicted severe damage.
On the back of ninth-round selection Jaroslav Halak, the Canadiens dispatched the Washington Capitals and Alexander Ovechkin in the first round, and Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round, both series needed seven games. But Montreal then lost 4-1 to the Philadelphia Flyers in the Eastern Conference Final. Still, an idol was born for Montrealers, and those playoffs became known as the “Halak Spring”.
In honour of Jaroslav Halak’s retirement, here how the Canadiens turned a 9th round pick in 2003 into Patrik Laine and a 2nd round pick in 2026. pic.twitter.com/aZpMJKLF9J
— Andrew Zadarnowski (@AZadarski) July 18, 2025
Still, the Slovak goaltender wasn’t the chosen one and on June 17, 2010, GM Pierre Gauthier traded Halak to the St. Louis Blues for Lars Eller and Ian Schultz. Gauthier called it a “big picture” decision, betting on the long-term potential of fifth-overall pick Carey Price, but fans were shaken. Canadian member of Parliament Justin Trudeau even chimed in, saying in the House of Commons, “What? Halak for two hockey sticks and a bag of magic beans?”.
At the time, I lived in London, England, and I remember emerging from the Tube only to receive a trade notification on my cell phone, which prompted a few choice words, not only from me but from a fellow commuter. We struck up a conversation about the deal and drowned our sorrows over a pint at the nearest pub. Little did we know that the trade, which at the time seemed lopsided, would bring dividends for years and ultimately lead to Kent Hughes striking a deal with the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2024 offseason.
It took some time, but one of the assets acquired in the Halak trade proved to be a valuable asset. It wasn’t Ian Schultz who never played a single game in the NHL and ended his career playing for the Edinburgh Capitals of the Elite Ice Hockey League in the United Kingdom, a league that once included the London Knights, the team that helped me through hockey droughts at times during my eight years in London. Still, the level of play was nowhere near the NHL’s.
The other player, however, Lars Eller, evolved into a great two-way center who skated with the Canadiens until he was traded to the Capitals for two draft picks. He went on to win a Stanley Cup with them. The 58th overall pick in the 2017 draft, which was used to select Joni Ikonen, a center who never came over to this side of the pond. The 62nd overall pick in the 2018 draft was traded to the Edmonton Oilers for two additional draft picks in the same year.
The fifth-round pick was used to select Samuel Houde, who spent some time in the AHL and the ECHL before joining the Sierre HC in the Swiss league. As for the third-round pick, it became Jordan Harris, a blueliner who would sign with the Canadiens after spending four years in the NCAA with Northeastern University.
Harris spent three seasons with the Canadiens, but with a blueline full of promising young defensemen, he was used by Kent Hughes to acquire sniper Patrik Laine and a second-round pick at the 2026 draft.
Whatever happens with Laine this upcoming season, I think it’s safe to say the Halak trade wasn’t that bad in the end, it’s still paying off today, and we won’t know until next June what that second-round pick will become.
It’s wild to think that after Halak announced his retirement yesterday, his trade three is still going strong and could still deliver another impact piece for the Canadiens, after all, Lane Hutson was a second-round pick, so it’s possible to find hidden (or not so hidden, and just diminutive in size) gems in that round.
Photo credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images
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