Lukas Dostal

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

56 appearances, 30-20-4, a 3.10 goals-against average and a .888 save percentage. No shutouts. Among the 56 goaltenders who played 25 games or more, he finished 41st in save percentage; the league median was .896.

The Physical Game

6-2, which is small by the standards of the position now, and he plays a controlled butterfly that depends on being in the right place early rather than on covering ground late. When he is set, he is good. When the play moves laterally and he has to travel, the second save is where the trouble starts.

Rebound control is the weakest part. Too many pucks come back into the slot rather than to the corners, and against a team that hunts second chances that is a goal a game.

The Mental Game

He does not visibly come apart, which matters on a club that gave up the fourth-most expected goals in the league. He faced 1,513 shots, most of them in games where the score was already moving away from him, and he kept answering the bell.

His last 10 appearances read .874 on 261 shots. That is not a slump inside a good season; it is the season.

The Intangibles

Here is the fairest thing that can be said. Anaheim finished 3rd in the NHL in even-strength expected goals for and 30th in expected goals against. The club’s goaltending came in 33 goals worse than the chances it faced would predict. Some of that is a defence that hangs its goaltender out; a good deal of it is not.

He is 26. This is the age where goaltenders either become the answer or become the reason a club goes looking for one. The team in front of him is about to get good enough that the difference will be obvious.