Chicago Wolves Goalie Dustin Tokarski Gets a Job, Wins

Dustin Tokarski provides yet another example of why depth is so important to an NHL organization.

He has done that before. Everywhere, it seems. That importance extends beyond the NHL roster as well. For the past five and a half years, Tokarski has helped a team of Carolina Hurricanes prospects find their way to the Calder Cup championship. Now he could be positioned to help another wave of young Hurricanes talent find their way to the AHL.

First go back to the 2018-19 season. Tokarski, 29 years old at the time, had come to the Charlotte Checkers late in the 2018-19 season in a deal with the Hartford Wolf Pack. Checkers prospect Alex Nedeljkovic that season was on his way to a 51-17-7-1 regular season finish. But the team needed some additional insurance and a reduction in Nedeljkovic’s workload, and Tokarski provided just that kind of help. Down 7-0-0 | 1.14 | .956 for the Checkers and went 5-0-0 | 1.74 | .935 during the Calder Cup Playoffs. Adding Tokarski ended up being one of the best late-season AHL trades of the last decade.

But that Charlotte streak has long been disbanded. For one thing, the Hurricanes-Checkers rivalry itself officially ended 15 months after Charlotte lifted the Calder Cup. Charlotte ended up joining the Florida Panthers who found success. The Hurricanes eventually tied with the Chicago Wolves — the team that fell to Charlotte in the 2019 finals while partnering with the Vegas Golden Knights — and won the 2022 Calder Cup. Then the Hurricanes-Wolves arrangement was scrapped. The two teams spent last season apart before getting back together this season.

Since that 2019 championship, Martin Necas has continued to be a force for the Hurricanes, ranking third in NHL scoring. Nedeljkovic, Jake Bean, Morgan Geekie, Steven Lorentz, and Nicolas Roy have all become NHL regulars. Head coach Mike Vellucci is now an assistant coach for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Ryan Warsofsky, an assistant coach for the Checkers that season, won another Calder Cup in 2022 and now leads the San Jose Sharks. Patrick Brown, Trevor Carrick, Roland McKeown, Andrew Poturalski, and Dan Renouf are among the core of that Charlotte team that is still contributing at the AHL level. Others have found roles in top leagues across Europe. A number of retired players.

As for Tokarski, his route took him to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Rochester, back to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, and to another location in Rochester. Along the way, he also ended up playing a combined 46 games between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres, including a career-high 29 at the NHL level in 2021-22.

But now Tokarski is 35 years old. After being caught in a goal-laden picture last season at Rochester, no jobs were done during the summer. It’s been a tough job market for veteran goalkeepers in general. Malcolm Subban went unsigned before ending up managing the Belleville Senators following a quick stint with the Grand Rapids Griffins. Tokarski had to accept an invitation to training camp with the Ottawa Senators that ended up not coming out. Michael Hutchinson and Kasimir Kaskisuo, two proven goaltenders at this level are still unsigned after taking a break from NHL training camp back in September.

When the season opened, Tokarski was unemployed. And soon the Wolves will have all kinds of questions in net.

Spencer Martin was sent to Chicago for the season. Martin is a reliable 29-year-old who can handle the starting job for Wolves and new coach Cam Abbott. Yaniv Perets, who was with the ECHL’s Norfolk Admirals last season, could compete with 2023 fifth-round pick Ruslan Khazheyev for more work behind Martin. That plan made sense and followed the established arrangement most NHL organizations use at the AHL level.

That plan quickly unraveled in the Carolina organization, however. An injury to Hurricanes football player Frederik Andersen saw Martin brought back to the Wolves just two weeks into the season. Pyotr Kochetkov took control of the Carolina net with Martin playing a supporting role.

Back with Wolves, Martin’s departure caused its own problems.

All of this comes as the Hurricanes’ prospects find themselves trying to cope with the AHL adjustment and each other. After having several prospects scattered across the hockey map last season, the key to reuniting with the Wolves was the opportunity to bring that young talent under the control of Carolina’s day-to-day organization again. They play the same way, listen to the same coaches, and start hanging out together.

And a significant crop of players the Hurricanes have placed with Chicago. Domenick Fensore, Noel Gunler, Aleksi Heimosalmi, Scott Morrow, Bradly Nadeau, Ronan Seeley, and Felix Unger-Sorum all help form a strong group of prospects. Ryan Suzuki has had an up and down start to his professional career, but he’s still only 23 years old.

All that youth is there to grow, which is a long-term investment for the Hurricanes but one that comes with day-to-day problems in the current era. It soon became clear that Chicago’s goaltending needed improvement. Perets has given up five goals in each of his first two starts. Khazheyev turned 20 this week and came to North America with every single game of professional experience behind him. Continuing to go with two unproven goaltenders in the AHL could jeopardize the development of some of Carolina’s prospects in Chicago. And it jeopardized the long-term well-being of two young lotteries trying to turn themselves into professionals.

Abbott has already been able to make this team play honest hockey. They allow the fewest shots per game in the AHL (24.8). Scoring remains an important issue, however, as they rank second from last with 1.83 goals per game. If the Wolves can get their scoring and special teams plays down the track — the power play stays at the end while the penalty kill is 28 — it can cause problems for opponents.

That’s when Tokarski, who has played 80 NHL games, entered the picture. The Wolves brought in the 35-year-old on a paid trial Nov. 2.

He brought speedy net safety to the Wolves. Along with that 2019 championship, he also took the Norfolk Admirals to the 2012 title. That Norfolk team won a league-record 28 games in a row and made the Calder Cup Playoffs.

Outside of the AHL, he has also taken on some of the more pressure-filled goaltending assignments the game can offer. As a 20-year-old he helped lead Canada to a gold medal at the 2009 IIHF World Junior Championship, and he did it on home ice in Ottawa, at least. Last year, he led the Spokane Chiefs to the Memorial title. In 2014, he stepped in for Carey Price and the Montreal Canadiens in their Eastern Conference Final game against the New York Rangers. That streak for Tokarski included two playoff games — one at the Bell Center, one at Madison Square Garden — before the Rangers took that series. When the Habs needed help in net that year, they relied on the kind of depth Tokarski could bring.

This is a goalkeeper who can handle pressure. And a goalkeeper like that can accommodate a small team, especially one that struggles to score goals. In his first game of the season last Sunday, he shut out the Rockford IceHogs with a 29-save afternoon.

Then word came Thursday that Andersen’s health had many long-term implications. Carolina announced that he will have knee surgery on Friday and will be out for 8-12 weeks. The long-term end of that timeline would put Andersen’s return in the second half of February. This is a team that is off to a 14-5-0-0 start. It makes sense to consider Carolina a potential Stanley Cup contender. It makes more sense to think that general manager Eric Tulsky might be busy

At the same time the Andersen news broke on Thursday, Tokarski was doing his job again for the Wolves. Playing a morning game in Manitoba, he shut out the Moose with 25 stops in a 5-0 win. He’s 54-for-54 in shutouts so far, and suddenly a team that had combined for 18 goals in their first 11 games now has nine goals in two games. The power play is starting to show some life with a 3-for-14 performance in these two wins.

Tokarski is now 11th in all-time wins by an AHL goaltender with 218. If he were to stay with the Wolves for a long time, it is conceivable that he could tie or surpass AHL Hall of Famer Frederic Cassivi’s 232 wins for seventh in league history. Tokarski’s two shutouts now bring him to 30 in his AHL career, which ranks him eighth in league history. Jason LaBarbera’s 32 shutouts would follow.

Even with those successes, what’s next for Tokarski remains murky. His mask still carries the Buffalo blue and gold theme like his pads, after all. If the Hurricanes come out and get some scoring help, that could bring Martin back to the Wolves and flood the Chicago net. Maybe Perets might get a shot with Carolina. Tulsky even brought up Tokarski’s name without reason in an interview with the team’s website, saying the veteran “could be our choice.”

Hockey, especially in the AHL, can be everyday. What the Hurricanes do or don’t do will directly affect the Wolves. At 5-7-1-0, Abbott’s club still has a lot of work to do. But for now, at least, Tokarski has a job, and Wolves look very dangerous.

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