The Montreal Canadiens have rolled the dice and taken a couple of goaltenders with late picks in recent NHL Drafts.
While they didn’t have to focus on the position over the past decade or so with Carey Price firmly entrenched in goal for the Canadiens, the past few years have seen the Habs taking goalies in the later round.
And a couple of them are starting to look really, really good.
One of them is Frederik Dichow, who was the Canadiens 5th round pick in 2019. The 6’5″ native of Denmark is playing in Allsvenskan this season, which is the second best league in Sweden. Dichow has played well enough this season that he was named to Denmark’s Olympics roster for the upcoming Winter Games next month.
Next season, it was recently announced, that Dichow will be heading to Frolunda to play for a historic Swedish franchise in the SHL which is the top pro league in Sweden.
The 20 year old netminder is certainly showing that he is worthy of promotion to the top tier. He is second in the Allsvenskan in save percentage at .930 and sits third in the league in goals against average at 2.20.
Dichow has stolen the starter’s role away from Olof Lindbom who was drafted in the second round of the 2018 NHL Draft by the New York Rangers. The team is 14-6-0 when Dichow is in goal and are just 9-7-0 when Lindbom is in goal.
Frolunda’s two current goaltenders, Matt Tomkins and Niklas Rubin are both middle of the pack when it comes to goalie stats, and both have their contracts ending at the end of this season so there could be an opening for Dichow to become Frolunda’s starter at the age of 21.
Much like Jakub Dobes, who was also a 5th round pick of the Canadiens and is playing quite well for Ohio State University this season, Dichow is a young goaltending prospect worth keeping an eye on.
He is taking another big jump next season to go to SHL, but he will be in a terrific organization.