Maxime Lagacé

Before the NHL call-ups and European contracts, Maxime Lagacé was a young goaltender coming up through Quebec hockey. Born on January 12, 1993, in Canada, he played in the 2005 and 2006 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournaments with a minor ice hockey team from Rive-Nord. The path that followed was the familiar one for many modern goaltenders: long bus rides, crowded depth charts, sudden chances, and the need to be ready when a crease finally opened.

Lagacé began his junior career in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League in 2010 with the P.E.I. Rocket. Over three years there, he played 107 games, finishing with a 33–80–6 record and an .873 save percentage, and appeared in one junior playoff game. In July 2012, after participating in Dallas Stars Development Camp, he signed a three-year entry-level contract with the Stars. His junior years kept shifting after that. In 2013 he moved to the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, then was traded to the Shawinigan Cataractes and the Sherbrooke Phoenix in the same season.

His early professional career was just as unsettled, but it also showed his persistence. Under contract with Dallas, Lagacé entered the American Hockey League with the Texas Stars, then spent time in the ECHL with the Missouri Mavericks and Bakersfield Condors. In Bakersfield, he posted a personal best .915 save percentage. Back with Texas the next season, he played 36 games with a 19–10–3 record and a .913 save percentage, then signed a one-year, two-way extension with Dallas.

The widest public spotlight came with the Vegas Golden Knights. Lagacé joined the NHL expansion team as a free agent in 2017 and began with the Chicago Wolves, Vegas’s AHL affiliate. Injuries to Marc-André Fleury, Malcolm Subban, and Oscar Dansk brought him into the NHL in October. He appeared first against the New York Islanders, made his first NHL start the next night at Madison Square Garden against the New York Rangers, and earned his first NHL win on November 4, 2017, against the Ottawa Senators. With the Wolves, he also became part of AHL history in the 2019 Calder Cup playoffs, recording the first playoff goal by a goaltender in league history when he made a save and was the last Wolves player to touch the puck before San Diego accidentally put it into its own net.

Lagacé later moved through several respected organizations. With the Providence Bruins in 2019–20, he posted AHL career highs with 22 wins, a 2.37 goals-against average, a .919 save percentage, and five shutouts. With the Pittsburgh Penguins, in his only game for the club on May 8, 2021, he stopped all 29 shots against the Buffalo Sabres and became the first goaltender in Penguins history to record a shutout in his first game. He later joined the Tampa Bay Lightning, then continued his career in Europe with Färjestad BK in Sweden and Graz99ers in the ICE Hockey League.

Lagacé’s words fit the life of a goaltender who has had to move often, wait often, and answer quickly when called. Fluent in French and English, and shaped by both North American and European hockey, he has lived the kind of career where resilience is not abstract. “It takes courage to accept the past and move forward with your life” feels at home beside his record, not because every stop was easy, but because he kept finding the next net to guard.