2024 NHL Draft player profile: Lukas Matecha, Tri-City Americans

Many WHL players have become personally acquainted with the lightning-quick glove of Lukas Matecha since he made the jump to the WHL from his native Czechia for the 2023-24 season.

That includes his Tri-City Americans teammates.

“He’s very competitive and very serious when he’s got his gear on,” Americans Head Coach Stu Barnes said. “He’s very dialed in to stop pucks. We joked early on because there were a couple of practices where he showed up and I don’t think any of our guys scored on him until maybe a few minutes left in practice. There was never a situation where we had to go clean his net out because it was full of pucks.”

That tracks.

Matecha doesn’t like being scored on by anyone at anytime.

In a CHL player survey in the lead-up to the Kubota CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game, Matecha was asked which WHL skater was the toughest to play against.

“I don’t look at who’s playing,” Matecha shrugged. “I focus on the puck, that’s my job. Catch the puck, that’s all.”

The 6-foot-3, 196-pound netminder has made the most of his first season in North America.

Matecha posted a 13-19-1-1 record, a 3.42 goals-against average and a .901 save percentage while facing an average of 29.6 shots per night.

While he may not have gotten the wins he wanted with a Tri-City squad that faced a number of injuries and obstacles throughout the campaign, those numbers don’t necessarily reflect his ability.

The 19-year-old slammed the door for a 35-save shutout on November 21, 2023, and stopped a season-high 53 of 54 shots in a 4-1 win over the Wenatchee Wild on February 7, 2024.

“Maybe the silver lining in all of this is a lot of guys got to play, probably more minutes than they were expected to play because of some injuries and some challenges and things like that,” Barnes added. “He’s a big goalie, very calm in the net, doesn’t move around a whole bunch, uses his angles and his size very, very well. What’s really exciting about him is, if there is ever a funny bounce or unexpected play where he needs to react to it, he’s very, very athletic, and is able to get across the net and make saves that some guys can’t just because of their size. He has that athletic ability and reads the play very well.”

Despite being passed over in his first year of NHL draft eligibility, Matecha has had the full attention of NHL scouts since coming to North America.

The Pardubice, Cze. product stopped all 19 shots he faced at the Top Prospects game and is now ranked third among all North American goaltenders by NHL Central Scouting in the agency’s final pre-draft rankings.

He’s the top-ranked draft-eligible WHL netminder and one of four Western League goalies in the top 10 of the final list.

“I’m just working every day,” Matecha said of his second swing at hearing his name called at the draft. “I’m doing the same things and I’m watching the videos where I can be better. I’m not nervous.”

But if Matecha’s trajectory is any indication, maybe his opponents should be nervous.

The 2024 NHL Entry Draft runs from June 28-29 at Sphere in Las Vegas, Nev.