Columbus Blue Jackets add top Goalie Prospect Matiss Kivlenieks
The Columbus Blue Jackets have added a new goalie to the system. Matiss Kivlenieks has penned a three year entry level contract to join the squad in Central Ohio.
Matiss Kivlenieks is a twenty year old Latvian goalie that spend last season in the USHL playing for the Sioux City Musketeers. The goalie was pursued by many NHL teams and considered one of the top unsigned prospects. The Columbus Blue Jackets were the club to ultimately sign the net minder.
Kivlenieks, whose name we still have no idea how to pronounce, will certainly excite Jeff Rimmer as a challenging new name. He also should excite the entire franchise. Matias posted an astonishing 36-7-4-2 record with a 9.32 save percentage and a 1.85 GAA. Those numbers led the USHL.
Kivlenieks was named not only the top goalie in the USHL this year, but the top overall player. He is certainly the biggest protect signing the Columbus Blue Jackets have had in recent memory and will go a long way to sure up their goalie stable as they stare down a daunting expansion draft.
Affecting the Goalie Situation
The Jackets will have to expose both Anton Foreberg and Joonas Korpisalo to Vegas. Forsberg is much less likely to hurt the Jackets if taken than we predicted at the beginning of the year. Korpi though is right in the Golden Knights crosshairs.
Columbus Blue Jackets
There are a plethora of good goalies available but only one of them will be 22-years-old and halfway proven. Korpi could be the young goalie Vegas drafts to compliment their stable of older, more experience goalies they will likely pick up.
With Forsberg not having a path to the NHL with the squad and the possibility of Korpi leaving, the team needed to evaluate the situation in goal.
Matiss fellow Latvian, Elvis Merzlikins, played phenomenally at the IIHF world championships but still has a ways to go to prove himself. Oskar Dansk has an expiring contract and with this signing he will certainly be looking for a new place to play.
Kivlenieks can fill in Dansk/Forsberg spot and prove himself in Cleveland over the next year or so and help sure up the goalie situation.
The Columbus Blue Jackets landed a big goalie prospect in Matiass for the future between the bars. And we just picked up another complicated player name to type out.