One of the best goaltenders in the QMJHL has committed to Nebraska Omaha for next year.
Nebraska Omaha just picked up a gem from the CHL — a player with both an interesting history and star potential.
Meet William Lacelle, an 18-year old goaltender from Gatineau, Quebec. He stands 6-foot-1, 172 pounds, and catches left. NHL Central Scouting currently ranks him as the seventh-best North American goaltender, and Elite Prospects has him ranked 75th overall.
It’s difficult for non-goaltenders to analyze goalies, but by most accounts, Lacelle is an excellent goaltender. Multiple scouts said he’s an athletic goaltender with extremely high upside.
Moving to Omaha will be the first time Lacelle has ever played outside of Quebec full-time. He spent his midget career in Quebec Midget AAA League (QMAAA) with the Lac St-Louis Lions, and was drafted 10th overall by the Rimouski Océanic in the 2023 QMJHL Draft. He joined later in that year, playing only a handful of games.
He was their leading goaltender in his second season as a 16/17 year old, playing 36 games while three other goalies divided the remaining ones. In that 2024-25 season, Lacelle posted a 2.38 goals against average with a .909 save percentage and recorded 27 wins, leading Rimouski to first in the East Division. For his outstanding performance, he was awarded the Jacques Plante Trophy for the best GAA in the QMJHL, made the All-Rookie team and won the prestigious Raymond Lagacé Trophy for Defensive Rookie of the Year. He struggled in the playoffs, though, playing seven games but earning a .891 SV%, and lost the net to Mathis Langevin, who played 18 games with a .944 SV%. Rimouski lost in the Gilles-Courteau Trophy Championship to the Moncton Wildcats, four games to two.
Lacelle didn’t get the chance to lead the Océanic back to the Q championship, either. Rimouski was very mediocre, and lost Langevin midway through the season to Miami. Langevin still performed well, earning 14 of their 19 wins with a .919 SV% and a 2.82 GAA average. He was dealt in early January to the Blainville-Boisbrand Armada. Rimouski did not record a regulation win for the remainder of the year, losing 25 straight games at one point. With the Armada, Lacelle was again a stud in the net, but his playoff numbers were wildly inconsistent, swinging from an .829 SV% to a .950 SV% in the span of the final series against Moncton. He was then injured, and the Armada fell to the Wildcats, ending their run. Lacelle was named to the QMJHL All-Star Second Team this year.
Sources say that Lacelle was intended to be part of a large trade package at the upcoming QMJHL draft, potentially to St. John’s or back to Rimouski. This might explain why he chose to go to Omaha, though the school is an interesting choice. Omaha is not known for producing highly talented goaltenders, with its most notable goaltending alumni being Anthony Stolarz, who only played eight games with the team before going to join the London Knights. Dan Ellis is a more well-known program alum. Jumping into the NCHC as an 18-year-old goaltender behind a team that is not expected to make waves is an extremely risky move. The move would be worse if he was going into his draft year, but it’s still dangerous. Hopefully, he will be eased into the NCHC behind goaltender Dawson Cowan, who played for the Mavericks last year.
Aside from his strong play at the rink, Lacelle is an interesting goaltender because he’s severely hard of hearing. The goalie has been 95% deaf in his left ear and 50% in right ear since birth. He doesn’t use hearing aids (at least on the ice) and doesn’t have a cochlear implant, meaning that he relies on lipreading (he is bilingual in English and French) and his teammates shouting louder than usual when communicating on the ice. Lacelle says he considers it his “superpower” and feels it’s easily managed with good communication with his coaches and teammates, and that he always double-checks verbal instructions.
Omaha is getting one of the most intriguing goaltending prospects of this draft. But the overwhelming question is if he’ll be able to keep pace in a brutal NCHC.