Goaltending prospect Jesper Wallstedt is impressing with the Iowa Wild. Could he get called up to Minnesota anytime soon? Karel Vejmelka [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MjAyMTQwODE0NDUxNjgwMzI0/usatsi_21859586_168400847_lowres.jpg] Karel Vejmelka When you have a good goalie in the NHL, you often take for granted just how much easier they make life. When you don’t have stability at the position, you can’t stop thinking about just how sweet it would be to have something resembling consistently league average. While only a select few NHL teams, such as the New York Rangers, Dallas Stars, New York Islanders and Nashville Predators, have some of the best goalies, there are plenty of teams around the NHL that lack that stability. Whether it’s due to injuries, such as the Carolina Hurricanes, or poor performance, such as the Edmonton Oilers and New Jersey Devils, there are plenty of teams around the NHL that could use some help in net. Thankfully, they have options. From teams carrying three goalies on the NHL roster to prospects pushing for playing time and making a veteran available or even just a good player on a bad team, the goalie market is flush with goalies who would at least give a team a reason to believe they could get league-average play. Let’s look at some options from around the league while keeping in mind that so many of the teams around the NHL are cap-strapped. BRANDON BUSSI, BOSTON BRUINS Stop me if you’ve heard this before: the Boston Bruins are once again a dominant team in the NHL. They lost their top two centers, Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, to retirement over the summer, and they have a number of aging veterans on the team still. Despite that, they found a successful formula by loading their defense corps with an impressive depth of talent and having the most lovable two-headed monster in net. No one wants to see the hugging duo of Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swaymen split up, but they have 25-year-old Brandon Bussi ready to go. With so much of their success tied to their tandem in net, Bussi remains the odd man out despite putting up impressive numbers at the AHL level. Bussi is a bit of a late bloomer, going through the NAHL, USHL and NCAA before joining the AHL Bruins at the end of the 2021-22 season, but he has proven to be an excellent netminder at every level. His .924 save percentage in 32 games last year is followed by a .908 to start this season. He’s the closest thing to a prospect on this list, and the cost against the cap would be just $775,000. Bussi is ready for the challenge of playing in the NHL – even if the Boston Bruins don’t have the room to allow him to do it. Bussi is entering his prime, so getting an NHL shot is the obvious next step. ERIC COMRIE, BUFFALO SABRES Although he is already 28, Comrie hasn’t played a ton of NHL minutes, but he has been a solid netminder in his limited sample. He earned a contract in Buffalo after a solid season as the backup in Winnipeg, in which he put up a .920 save percentage. Last year, he had an up-and-down stretch behind a Buffalo defense that was not too keen on keeping pucks out of its own zone. Despite that, he did manage to find some success in stretches. He had a decent start and finished the year fairly strong as well. Coming into this season, the Sabres were facing the dilemma of having three NHL quality netminders with super rookie Devon Levi and longtime prospect Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen also in the fold. Comrie is hurt at the moment, but when he comes back, he could be the odd man out after a few solid performances before his injury. Comrie isn’t a long-term answer in net, and he isn’t the most attractive name to add to a goalie stable, but he has shown some very impressive skills. He shows some very solid habits, and his athleticism is good. There are plenty of fans of Comrie in the goalie community, and many believe that behind the right system, he could be a steady netminder. His $1.8-million cap hit for just this season could make it hard to move him, but if Buffalo is willing to eat half of his cap for the year or take back some salary in the deal, they could fetch a decent return from a desperate team. CAYDEN PRIMEAU OR JAKE ALLEN, MONTREAL CANADIENS The Montreal Canadiens have been carrying three netminders almost all year, and they probably wish they weren’t. That said, they aren’t about to give any of their goalies away; if they wanted to do that, they would have put someone on waivers. Sam Montembeault has asserted himself as the team’s No. 1 netminder with some solid play over the last year and a half. That leaves the veteran and the young guy vying for the backup job. Primeau was a seventh-round pick who improved year after year and earned a role on the NHL squad. He's done everything asked of him and more but seems to be the odd man out in the current threesome of netminders. Allen, on the other hand, is the savvy vet who has put together good outings year after year, showing he is capable of being a solid 1B in the NHL. The question is, who do they deal? Montreal can retain salary on Allen because they don’t have any plans of truly competing for a couple of years, but even at a shade under $2 million, he could be just out of the price range for many of the teams looking to acquire cheap, quality depth. That means Montreal may have to take a contract back for the rest of the year, which could boost Allen's return. If they decide to move Primeau, the acquiring team would get a younger and more cost-controlled netminder over the next two years but also an unproven one. JAMES REIMER, DETROIT RED WINGS Like Montreal, Detroit's been carrying three netminders all season. Ville Husso has taken the starter role after a solid 2022-23 campaign, and James Reimer seems to have solidified his role as the backup. Alex Lyon, the main reason the Florida Panthers even made it to the playoffs last year, has yet to find his way into an NHL game for the Wings. His presence on the roster isn’t meaningless, though; he was signed to play games. The Red Wings have been good to start the year, and although Husso has been struggling, the impressive play by Reimer hasn’t gone unnoticed, and it ultimately may put Detroit in the best position to make a deal. Reimer's rocking a .933 save percentage and showing that regardless of the play in front of him at times, he can be a steady and stabilizing presence on the back end. There are plenty of teams around the NHL that envisioned themselves as Cup contenders but have received wildly inconsistent and underwhelming play. Adding a steady hand in the net like Reimer could fix that. Detroit is reasonably a year or two away from being competitive over a full season, so selling high on Reimer at a cap hit of $1.5 million (or with a retained salary as low as $750,000) with Lyon waiting in the wings could be a massive win for the club. The other option would be moving Lyon after his hot end to last season – he carries a $900,000 cap hit. KEVIN LANKINEN, NASHVILLE PREDATORS The Nashville Predators have a stud in waiting in Yaroslav Askarov, who's had a very good start to the AHL season, and they have a stud in their NHL crease as Juuse Saros has routinely been one of the best goalies over the last five years. That leaves Kevin Lankinen as the backup in the mushy middle. Lankinen has a career .904 save percentage, and he's had a .909 or better in two of the last three seasons. He's proven to be a capable goalie, and he’s never played on a team that can actually support him offensively, as he’s spent his career in Chicago and Nashville to this point. Behind a Nashville defense that was solid in front of him last year, the Finnish netminder put up a .916 save percentage through 19 games as the backup. The goalie community's been high on Lankinen for a few years now, and there is belief the 28-year-old could be a very good tandem netminder. If a competitive team needs a goalie to come in and give them above-average goaltending, Lankinen may be the sneaky choice. If his $2-million cap hit is too much for a team, the Predators could retain up to half of it, considering they have the third-most cap space of any team in the NHL, per PuckPedia [https://puckpedia.com/teams]. KAREL VEJMELKA, ARIZONA COYOTES Arizona netminder Karel Vejmelka gives a rebuilding Yotes squad some impressive goaltending. He was often the reason the Coyotes were in games last year, and his start to this year has been even better. Unfortunately, the Coyotes are still struggling to string together wins, which means Vejmelka’s name has begun to pop up once again. His $2.725-million cap hit is among the larger of this group of netminders, but whether through Arizona or another club, retained salary could get it down to about $1.36 million, which is a much more manageable number for this season and next. A legitimate starter for under $2 million would be an asset that many competitive NHL clubs could get behind. Arizona has seen a good start to the season from Connor Ingram, who actually leads the team in almost all goaltending categories while splitting the starts almost evenly with Vejmelka. That could give the Yotes enough assurance he can be their main guy for the remainder of the season while they look to the future by trading the 27-year-old Vejmelka while his value remains high. THN.com/free [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MjAwNTg5MzM3NTA5NzY2MjUy/my-thn-ad-banner-1500x150.jpg] THN.com/free
