The Anaheim Ducks and general manager Pat Verbeek crossed a sizable item off of their summer agenda on Thursday when they signed goaltender Lukas Dostal to a five-year contract that carries an AAV of $6.5 million.
“It’s a big honor,” Dostal said when addressing the media following the announcement of his signing. “I always look at myself in the mirror, and I see a kid who came from a village with 300 people in it. It’s always a good reminder that you have a dream and you want to chase it. There’s always the possibility to reach it. It’s a big milestone, but there’s a long way ahead of us. We have an amazing team.”
Dostal followed up an impressive rookie season in 2023-24 with an even better sophomore season in 2024-25, in which he solidified himself as the unquestioned number one goaltender in Anaheim for the foreseeable future.
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Dostal, along with John Gibson, was part of potentially the best goaltending tandem in the NHL in 2024-25, and the pair was the most impactful contributing factor to the Ducks’ 21-point jump in the standings from the year prior.
He finished the season with 49 starts and appeared in 54 games. He posted a .903 SV%, stopped 10.28 goals above expected, and tallied his first career shutout.
If Dostal hadn’t already seized control of the starter’s job in Anaheim, the trading of John Gibson in late June put any and all doubt to rest. Dostal will now head a goaltending group featuring himself, veteran and fellow Czech countryman Petr Mrazek, and Ville Husso. The latter two will likely battle for the backup role, and each will likely get NHL games in 2025-26 with the Ducks.
With his new contract in place, Dostal will carry dramatically increased responsibility and expectations on his shoulders as the Ducks have stated their intended goal for the upcoming season is to make the 2026 playoffs.
“I truly believe it. It was one of the reasons that I was willing to sign a long-term deal,” he said when asked about the outlook of the organization. “It’s always about trusting the process, and I really trust the process of what’s going on in Anaheim right now. It’s very exciting for the future.”
Now that Dostal has received the baton from Gibson as the goaltender who will backstop the Ducks’ hopeful transition from rebuilding team to contending team, a figurative statement was made league-wide that he’s “the guy” now in Anaheim, and with that, he won’t sneak up on anyone. He is no longer a “no-name goalie," he will start more games than he ever has, and he will face the toughest opponents on the Ducks' schedule.
With his $6.5 million cap hit, Dostal is now the tenth-highest-paid goaltender in the NHL. He’s still making considerably less than the tier above him that features Juuse Saros ($7.74 million) and the four goaltenders each making $8.25 million: Ilya Sorokin, Jeremy Swayman, Jake Oettinger, and Linus Ullmark. However, he now leads the next tier of highest-paid goaltenders, which includes more experienced veterans like Gibson ($6.4 million), Adin Hill ($6.25 million), and Jacob Markstrom ($6 million).
Dostal’s demeanor is as poised as they come, something even more impressive considering he just turned 25 years old less than a month ago, and he’s never expressed the slightest indication of being rattled, on or off the ice.
After a blazing hot start in 2024-25, where he was near or at the top of the NHL in every goaltending statistic, his numbers wavered as the season became longer and longer. That could either be attributed to fatigue after playing the most hockey in his life, or to uncertainty and inability to reestablish a rhythm with Gibson’s seesaw battle with injury reserve last season.
Dostal is now 121 games into his NHL career and carries a career .902 SV%, a 42-58-13 record, and two shutouts. He’s sharp on his angles in the crease, and he has full trust in them. He never swims amid flurries in front of him, remaining square to pucks in tight at all times.
His most underrated quality is his ability to track pucks throughout the zone and through traffic. Though he’s a sound, fundamental goaltender, he can flash an occasional, yet remarkable athletic save when it’s necessary and shift the momentum of a game.
Dostal’s understanding of the NHL game has improved dramatically, and he’s now displaying veteran game-management skills, reading the ice in front of him and the progression of play, freezing pucks when his teammates need a whistle or advancing pucks when opposing teams are changing or tired.
Dostal plays his best hockey when it matters most, which to this point has been for Czechia on the international stage. He was named as one of the first six players added to his home country’s Olympic roster. Still, he and the Ducks will also be looking to play meaningful games well after the Olympic tournament has concluded in February.
With this new deal and the departure of Gibson, the crease in Anaheim belongs solely to Lukas Dostal. He’s been burdened with a tremendous amount of pressure, but he’s evaded the pitfalls of that pressure in the past, and this situation seems to be no different. He’s poised to make the jump into the club of the NHL’s truly elite goaltenders this upcoming season.
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Photo Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
