- Every NHL emergency backup goalie is set to wear No. 00 this season, per Chris Johnston
- The Wild became the first team to name a full-time EBUG, signing Peter Thome on Tuesday
- Read below for the history of No. 00 and why the NHL banned the number in the first place
The NHL just found a use for a number it outlawed 30 years ago.
Every emergency backup goaltender in the league is set to wear No. 00 this season. Chris Johnston of The Athletic and TSN posted the detail Tuesday afternoon, saying it sounds like the number is a requirement for all 32 EBUGs under the new collective bargaining agreement.
Minnesota kicked the whole thing off. Bill Guerin announced Tuesday that the Wild had signed 29-year-old Peter Thome as their hockey operations analyst and emergency backup goalie, and the team release spelled out the number in one plain line: he will wear sweater No. 00.
Michael Russo put the new job in terms anyone can picture. Here’s his read on what Thome actually signed up for:
Only two players have ever worn 00 in an NHL game, and both of them were goalies. John Davidson tried it with the Rangers in 1977-78 after Phil Esposito talked him into double digits, then switched off it once the Madison Square Garden crowd started getting on him about it. Martin Biron wore it for a three-game cameo with the Sabres in 1995-96.
Biron had to give it up when he came back to Buffalo in 1998. The league had banned 0 and 00 by then because the digits kept breaking its stats database.
So a number that once crashed the NHL’s computers is now standard issue for an entire job description.
That job changed a lot this summer. The EBUG is a full-time position under the new CBA rather than a guy eating popcorn in section 118, and every club travels with one on the road. We went through those requirements when the Sabres hired their emergency goalie earlier this month.
Requirements are tight on purpose. No NHL experience, no more than 80 professional games, nothing in the past three seasons, and no spot on any team’s reserve list.
Thome fits all of it. The Minneapolis native played four years at North Dakota, where his .936 save percentage in 2019-20 still stands as the best single season in school history. Columbus drafted him in the sixth round in 2016, and he last worked as a video coach with Coachella Valley in the AHL.
Nobody wants Thome in a game. If Minnesota ever needs him, though, he’ll skate out with the strangest sweater number in hockey on his back.
