- Erik Erlendsson reported Kyle Konin will be the Lightning’s emergency backup goaltender for 2026-27
- Konin has dressed on an NHL bench for the Blues, Flyers and Lightning without ever playing a game
- Read below for what the new CBA changed about the EBUG job and the No. 00 rule
Tampa Bay’s emergency goalie job is going to the guy who has quietly been doing it for years.
Kyle Konin will serve as the Lightning’s emergency backup goaltender for the 2026-27 season, Lightning Insider Erik Erlendsson reported Friday. He has already dressed on an NHL bench for three different franchises without ever playing a minute.
The Lightning have not announced it yet. Konin has held the Tampa-area emergency job since 2021, and nobody has ever needed him to get in a game.
He was on the bench for the Blues on Dec. 2, 2021, then the Lightning on April 1, 2024. Philadelphia signed him to an amateur tryout that November, after Aleksei Kolosov got hurt at the morning skate before a road game in Tampa.
His most recent turn came in April. Jonas Johansson was ruled out day to day, so Konin sat behind Andrei Vasilevskiy against Detroit.
There is video of the first one. Konin described what went through his head when the Lightning told him he was dressing in 2024. Watch him tell it:
Club hockey at Grand Valley State in 2019-20 was his last competitive stop, following junior stints in the EHL and the NA3HL. The West Kingston, Rhode Island native paints goalie masks through his own shop, Nujax Airbrush.
What changed is the job itself. Under the new CBA every team carries a full-time emergency goalie for all 84 games, road trips included, instead of leaving a volunteer in the stands on game nights. All 32 of them wear No. 00.
Teams have been filling the slot all summer. Dallas named Notre Dame product Jack Williams on Thursday, and he will be at every Stars game this season.
Most of these guys are introducing themselves to a locker room. Konin already knows where his stall is.
