After a rash of goaltending injures led to the Las Vegas Golden Knights adding Lantzville’s Dylan Ferguson as an emergency call-up, the 19-year-old Kamloops Blazers starter suited up as the NHL expansion club’s backup at historic Madison Square Garden in New York on Tuesday.
When Oscar Dansk went down with a lower-body injury, Golden Knights general manager George McPhee wasted little time in making the emergency call to Kamloops.
Earlier, Las Vegas had lost the services of Marc André-Fleury and Malcolm Subban. All three are now on the injured reserve list.
“I was having dinner with some of the guys on my junior team. I watching the game [in which Dansk was hurt], got a call and they pretty much said: ‘You’re on a flight in two hours.’ I left the restaurant, paid my bill and packed my bags and I’m here now,” Ferguson said.
“For sure, even when two guys went down, that was something that went through my mind,” he told reporters and team officials when he arrived in the Big Apple. “When I saw Oscar go down, it was just a few minutes later that I got the call. It was exciting for me and surreal.
“I’m really excited, a little in shock. Through all that I have to be ready to play. That’s just the facts. I have to be focused and I’m ready to play. If they need me, I’m ready to play.”
Ferguson backed up Maxime Lagacé, the fourth Golden Knights starting goaltender in their last 10 games, in Tuesday’s 6-4 loss.
Ferguson has struggled so far this season in Kamloops, with a 4-9-0 record, a 4.05 goals-against average and an .878 save percentage. He was acquired by the Golden Knights along with a second-round pick in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft from the Dallas Stars in June in exchange for defenceman Marc Methot.
Las Vegas then signed the six-foot-one, 197-pound netminder — who sparkled last year with a 2.74 GAA and .922 save percentage in 31 games in Kamloops — to a three-year, entry level contract in late September.
Ferguson did suit up for the Knights in NHL exhibition play against the Vancouver Canucks, allowing four goals on 33 shots in a 9-4 win.
“It’s all a part of it, it’s the next guy up,” Las Vegas head coach Gerard Gallant told the Golden Knights website. “Max went in and played his first NHL game and he battled hard.”
As far as Fleury is concerned, Gallant said: “He’s day to day. I don’t know when he’s going to come back. We all know how concussions are. He’s feeling better and working hard, but until the trainer comes and tells me he’s real close, he’ll be a while until he gets on the ice. We have to wait and see.”
SPIN THE WHEEL: Ferguson’s call-up leaves the Blazers with 17-year-old Max Palaga as their starter. Kamloops will bring in 15-year-old Dylan Garand, of Victoria, to take Ferguson’s spot in the lineup. Garand was a third-round pick in the 2017 WHL bantam draft and is playing for the Delta Hockey Academy prep team.
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