The NHL draft is an imperfect science and that goes double when it comes to goalies.
It’s rare to see a netminder become established in the NHL until at least four or five years after they’ve been drafted – and sometimes it takes even longer. Projecting how an 18-year-old junior goalie will perform as a 25-year-old NHLer is nearly impossible, and thus teams are wary of spending high draft picks on netminders. When Florida took Spencer Knight 13th overall last year, it was the highest a goalie had been drafted since Dallas took Jack Campbell 11th overall in 2010.