The NHL’s new mandatory emergency backup goalie rule is set to change more than the rare nightmare scenario when both roster netminders cannot dress. Around the League, the No. 00 practice goalie may become a regular part of workload management, giving starters and backups a way to step out of drills without leaving a sheet of fresh ice and a line of shooters with no target.
Every club must carry an emergency backup goalie under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. While some teams will keep that player strictly for last-minute absences, illness or an in-game injury that prevents a minor-league recall, others expect to use the third goalie throughout practices and in post-practice shooting sessions.
Dallas Stars starter Jake Oettinger sees the change as a potential health benefit. He said having another goalie available should reduce the pressure to skate through a day when a netminder needs rest.
“Goalie injuries are going to go down a lot because of that,” Oettinger said during the 2025-26 season. “When you need time off, you can take it. A lot of times you skate because you do not want to leave the rest of the group without a goalie, even when you know you probably should not be on the ice.”
After the horn
The added practice help matters in a position built on repetition and impact. Research has shown that one butterfly drop can place force equal to twice a goaltender’s body weight on the body. For Oettinger, that works out to about 450 pounds each time he drops into his pads.
Seattle Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer, a longtime supporter of carrying a third goalie, said the arrangement can also improve the quality of practice work. In drills packed with odd-man rushes, a goalie can lose sharpness after facing too many repetitions without a break.
“After 10 or 15 shots, you are not playing them as hard or as accurately because you know you cannot leave the net,” Grubauer said at the NHL/NHLPA European Player Media Tour in September. “Bad habits can creep in. With a third goalie, you can go five or six shots at full game level, get out, recover, then come back for the next drill.”
That recovery can be especially valuable the day after a start, when the goalie who played may need only a short session with the goalie coach rather than a full practice of line rushes and shooting drills.
“The guy who was not playing used to get stuck in net because the team needed someone to shoot on,” Grubauer said. “You may have played the previous night and not slept well, but you still had to take those shots. Now you can do a couple of warm-up shots, work through two or three drills with the goalie coach, and let the practice goalie handle the team session.”
The Utah Mammoth already saw the value of that setup with 22-year-old Colten McIntyre. The Park City native traveled with Utah throughout last season and dressed at Colorado on Dec. 23 after Karel Vejmelka suffered an upper-body injury. McIntyre became the first Utah-born player to dress for the Mammoth.
His most useful work, however, often came before puck drop. On road-game mornings, McIntyre took one end of the rink against Utah’s first power-play unit while Vejmelka and then-backup Vitek Vanecek warmed up at the other end. That gave the Mammoth power-play group its preferred reps on clean ice instead of waiting until the full team had completed its warmup.
The additional net helped Utah manage Vejmelka’s heavy schedule. He led the NHL last season with 64 appearances and 63 starts, four more starts than Nashville Predators goalie Juuse Saros.
Mammoth coach Andre Tourigny said the extra goalie allows the staff to balance rest with the need for Vejmelka and new backup Sebastian Cossa to maintain their rhythm.
“It helps a lot with load management,” Tourigny said. “Without an emergency goalie, it is much harder to give either goalie rest and still have a quality practice. Colten gives us a very good option with the way he prepares and competes whenever he is in the net.”
The concept is not entirely new. When Devan Dubnyk made a Minnesota Wild-record 38 straight starts in 2014-15, he credited the presence of fellow NHL goalies Darcy Kuemper and Nicklas Backstrom with helping him manage his practice time. Dubnyk could get early work with the goalie coach, take only part of the team’s drills and leave the ice.
The new rule makes a version of that support available to every club, though the emergency goalie position comes with strict eligibility and equipment requirements.
- An EBUG cannot have appeared in an NHL game while under a standard player contract.
- The goalie cannot have played more than 80 professional games.
- The goalie cannot have played professional hockey during the previous three seasons.
- All emergency backups will wear No. 00.
- They must meet the same NHL equipment-sizing standards as roster goalies, including measurements for pants and chest protectors.
- Goalie pads must be sent to NHL hockey operations in Toronto for review against the limits tied to each goalie’s leg measurements.
For most fans, the emergency backup remains the unusual name at the end of the bench, waiting for a situation no team wants. This season, though, the third goalie may be doing his most important work long before the anthem: saving starters’ legs, keeping practice pace high and letting teams protect their crease without sacrificing a full workout.
