It's been only a month since the Expansion Draft, but the Vegas Golden Knights have pretty much set themselves up in goal for the foreseeable future. Besides installing Marc-Andre Fleury and Calvin Pickard as their one-two, Vegas inked Oscar Dansk and Maxime Lagace, presumably for the Chicago Wolves, and walked away with a whopping three goalies from their first NHL Draft.
Greg Balloch of
In Goal Magazine was kind enough to share his thoughts about two of these three prospects, fourth-rounder Maksim Zhukov and seventh-rounder Dylan Ferguson, who came with a 2020 second-round pick from Dallas for Marc Methot. Balloch hasn't seen enough of sixth-rounder Jiri Patera to comment.
HockeyBuzz: What are Maksim Zhukov's strengths and weaknesses?
Greg Balloch: Zhukov isn't going to blow you away with his speed, but he plays a very smart positional game to minimize his excess movement. He has very good size and his technical game is very refined for a younger goaltender. He reads plays very well and doesn't really have any major red flags about his game.
The question mark with him is where his ceiling is. If he isn't able to get stronger and quicker, it doesn't matter how good his technical game is.
HB: In your opinion, what's his NHL ceiling? Does he remind you of anybody?
GB: Like I said, his ceiling is a big ol' question mark. The USHL is a great league, but the adjustment to pro or NCAA is always a difficult one. He's an excellent foundation for a team like Vegas that is building their prospect pool from scratch. Ideally, he would be the second or third-best goalie prospect on a team by the time he reaches pro.
HB: What can you tell us about Dylan Ferguson?
GB: Ferguson is a great steal for the Golden Knights. They weren't able to get a huge package for Marc Methot, but they did get a really low-risk, high-reward kind of goaltending prospect.
He will be given a much larger role on the Kamloops Blazers this year after being stuck behind Tampa Bay's Connor Ingram this past year. That shielded Ferguson from being seen by some scouts of other teams.
He performed extremely well in a backup role, and now he gets to take the next step. His reads are a little over-aggressive at times, and Kamloops is a decent team, so he was bailed out at times.
If he is able to settle things down, and learn how to not always rely on his athleticism, he could end up being comparable to a guy like Edmonton's Dylan Wells.
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