Top-20 Penguins' Prospects 2026, No. 16: Netminder Entering Huge 'Prove-It' Season
Next up on THN's Top-20 Penguins' Prospects list is a goaltender who, while still believed to be a valuable part of the team's future, is entering a pivotal season for his career.
It's officially another season, another prospects ranking for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
In years past, this has been a bit easier of an exercise, as there used to be a more clear-cut line between prospects with NHL upside and longshots. However, because of the work that general manager and president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas and his staff have put in during the last several years, the line is blurring a whole lot more - and there is a substantially higher volume of talent in the system.
This time around, making a top-20 list was challenging. So, a few criteria were put into place: To make our list, prospects must be under the age of 26 and have played less than 50 NHL games. This excludes names such as Ben Kindel, Filip Hallander, Oliver Okuliar, and Alexander Alexeyev.
At No. 17, we put a spotlight on playmaking center Zam Plante, as his year-to-year growth has continued to raise his floor and ceiling. For No. 16, we look between the pipes, where a still-valuable goaltender is entering a critical season in his development.
No. 16: G Joel Blomqvist
For some, seeing the 24-year-old Blomqvist this low on our list might come as a bit of a surprise. And, really, this is not so much Blomqvist's doing as it is a case of several guys simply surpassing him in terms of NHL potential and intrigue.
That said, the product of Uusikaarlepyy, Finland is at a crossroads in his development, and this season may just determine his future with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
With the emergence of fellow young netminder Sergei Murashov - currently the organization's best bet as its next franchise goaltender - someone else has, likely, surpassed Blomqvist on the depth chart despite some legitimate promise he has shown throughout his professional career up to this point. But that doesn't mean things are over for Blomqvist or that the Penguins no longer see him as part of their future.
In fact, Dubas has mentioned Blomqvist on several occasions, including in his end-of-season press conference when he suggested that either him or Murashov would have an opportunity to seize one of the two NHL roster spots for the 2026-27 season - with the other belonging to the recently re-signed Arturs Silovs. He is very much still in the mix, and for good reason.
After dealing with an injury in the latter part of the 2024-25 AHL regular season and yet another during training camp last season, Blomqvist's luck hasn't exactly been top-notch. But his performance has earned him the opportunity to remain in the NHL conversation. In 26 AHL appearances in a 1B role alongside Murashov in 2025-26, he was 16-5-4 with a .913 save percentage and 2.40 goals-against average, which were comparable numbers to Murashov's .919 and 2.20, respectively.
In addition, his first career NHL stint - which occurred at the beginning of the 2024-25 season when injuries paved the way for him to debut - showed some promise, as he had a .913 save percentage in his first seven NHL appearances before a disaster showing against the Dallas Stars sent him back to the AHL for a bit. His second stint that same year did not go as well, and he was eventually sent back to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (WBS), where he was injured shortly after.
Blomqvist is an athletic, well-positioned goaltender when he is on. The strengths in his game are his quickness post-to-post, his tracking, his rebound control, and his reads. Those should continue to be strengths as he, hopefully, progresses even further in his development this season, which will likely be as the 1A in WBS to Taylor Gauthier's 1B, assuming Murashov shows well in camp.
He did not appear in any Calder Cup playoff games for the WBS Penguins last season, as Murashov played in all 15. But if there's one glaring degree of separation between Murashov and Blomqvist, it's the "big-game" reputation.
In the previous two postseason appearances for WBS, Blomqvist was the goaltender of record, and he posted sub-.895 save percentages in both years within a short, three-game sample size. In order to take the next step in his development, he has to show that he can come up big in the biggest games and in the biggest moments, akin to what Silovs and Murashov have already shown.
Given that he will turn 25 this season - and with two promising young goaltenders ahead of him on the depth chart - this season is the most important of Blomqvist's career to date. Assuming it's the other two in the NHL, he not only needs to assert himself as first in line for a call-up, but he needs to assert himself as a valuable piece of the future with his performance this season.
Now, it's make-it-or-break-it for Blomqvist.
The list so far:
- No. 20: D Chase Pietila
- No. 19: C Kale Dach
- No. 18: LW/C Ryan Miller
- No. 17: C Zam Plante
- No. 16: G Joel Blomqvist
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