Heading into the 2025-26 season, the Pittsburgh Penguins have shifted the focus to youth and development.
With more talent in the system than Pittsburgh has had in years - and 13 picks in the 2025 NHL Draft - top prospects lists are becoming more competitive and more difficult to discern. Since the prospect pool is deepening, The Hockey News - Pittsburgh Penguins takes a look at the top-20 prospects in the organization.
For No. 9, we highlight the first goaltender on our list - and he's entering a crucial year in his development and with the Penguins' organization. That netminder is 23-year-old Joel Blomqvist.
#9: G Joel Blomqvist
Blomqvist had quite the interesting 2024-25 season. Following a stellar 2023-24 campaign at the AHL level - when he posted a .921 save percentage to go along with a 2.16 goals-against average and a 25-12-6 record - the 6-foot-2, 182-pound netminder went into training camp with aspirations of somehow cracking the NHL roster.
As it turns out, he got his wish. Due to a pre-season injury forced former Penguins' goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic to miss the first several games of the regular season, an opportunity came for Blomqvist to tandem with starting goaltender Tristan Jarry from the get-go.
And he did not disappoint.
Blomqvist impressed so much in his first handful of games that he forced the Penguins' hand into carrying three goaltenders once Nedeljkovic came back into the fold. He had a .912 save percentage through his first seven appearances, and it wasn't until a very human performance against the Dallas Stars on Nov. 11 - when Blomqvist surrendered three goals on just eight shots - that he was re-assigned back to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (WBS).
Top-20 Penguins' Prospects 2025: Forward Has Outside Shot At NHL Roster Out Of CampHeading into the 2025-26 season, the Pittsburgh Penguins have shifted the focus to youth and development.
Blomqvist went back down the AHL level, but he was only there for about two months before Jarry was waived in late January, which opened the door for Blomqvist to get some runway at the NHL level a second time. Unfortunately, the second stint didn't go as well for Blomqvist, and he was sent back to WBS before an injury there kept him out for much of the latter part of the season.
His totals in his first NHL season? An .885 save percentage and a 3.81 goals-against average, neither of which are ideal. But the stats don't tell the entire story, as Blomqvist wasn't exactly garnering consistent playing time in his second stint since Nedeljkovic was playing very well at the time.
But there is still promise in Blomqvist's game. He's athletic, he's quick post-to-post, he plays the puck well, and he has good rebound control. His biggest flaw is high-glove side, which is oftentimes a fatal flaw of young goaltenders.
Blomqvist certainly still needs some refinement, but as of now, he's still a large piece of the Penguins' future. The trouble is that - with several other goaltenders either on his heels or competing with him for NHL and AHL playing time, including Sergei Murashov, Filip Larsson, Taylor Gauthier, and the newly acquired Arturs Silovs - Blomqvist won't have a whole lot of wiggle room to prove himself to the Penguins' organization.
With the departure of Nedeljkovic this summer, that eliminated one of the veterans on the NHL roster. However, the subsequent addition of Silovs further adds to the youth competition that Blomqvist faces in lieu of trying to compete for an NHL roster spot out of camp.
Murashov is the organization's best goaltending prospect and - realistically - should be starting AHL games this season. So, if Blomqvist does not beat out Silovs in training camp, he's likely facing a split in WBS with one of Murashov, Larsson, or Gauthier - which is obviously does much less for his development at this juncture than splitting time with Jarry in the NHL.
Blomqvist has proven enough that he probably deserves a chance to have a lot of runway at the NHL level this season. But, at the same time, the Penguins need to begin figuring out what their future looks like at the position. The reality is that they currently have five goaltenders who should be playing at the AHL level at the very least, but between one spot on the NHL roster and just two in WBS, the math works against all of them.
Even if it's not quite fair for a 23-year-old goaltending prospect, this really is a "make-it-or-break-it" year of sorts for Blomqvist. He needs to earn the other NHL job out of camp, and if he doesn't quite do that, he needs to show that he is the clear man for the job in WBS so he is the first on-call.
Again, there is still a lot of promise to Blomqvist's game, and Penguins' fans will have to be a little bit patient with some of the growing pains that will come with gaining NHL experience. But, unfortunately for him, he has to prove that he's NHL-ready quickly - and he has to continue to show why he still belongs in any top-10 Penguins' prospect rankings.
Who Will Be The Starting Goaltender In WBS This Season?The NHL goaltending situation for the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2025-26 already figures to be an interesting one.
The list so far:
- No. 10: F Tristan Broz
- No. 11: F Will Horcoff
- No. 12: F Mikhail Ilyin
- No. 13 F Filip Hallander
- No. 14: F Bill Zonnon
- No. 15: F Melvin Fernstrom
- No. 16: D Emil Pieniniemi
- No. 17: F Avery Hayes
- No. 18: F Cruz Lucius
- No. 19: D Finn Harding
- No. 20: D Peyton Kettles
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