Dennis Hildeby

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

20 appearances, 5-7-4, a 2.86 goals-against average and a .9124 save percentage with 1 shutout. His career figure across 26 games is .9034. His 5-on-5 work was done in Toronto.

The Physical Game

6-7 and 231 pounds — the largest goaltender in this edition, and among the largest ever to play in the league.

The size is the whole proposition: he takes up the net simply by standing in it, and on a shot from distance there is nowhere obvious to put the puck. The difficulty at that height is the same as it is for every goaltender this large — getting down and getting back up, and holding the post through traffic.

The lateral push is better than it has any right to be.

The Mental Game

20 appearances behind a Toronto club whose goaltending finished 21 goals worse than the chances it faced, and he stopped .9124 in them — better than either of the 2 men ahead of him.

The Intangibles

A .9124 in 20 games is a small sample and a genuinely encouraging one, and it is the best figure any Toronto goaltender posted last season.

He is 25, a fourth-round pick, and arrives as the backup to Andrei Vasilevskiy, which is either the best apprenticeship available or a year on the bench, depending on how many of the 58 starts the club wants to keep giving a 32-year-old.