{"id":21117,"date":"2018-07-11T13:20:09","date_gmt":"2018-07-11T17:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21117"},"modified":"2018-07-11T13:20:09","modified_gmt":"2018-07-11T17:20:09","slug":"auroras-galajda-seeing-what-nhl-is-all-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/auroras-galajda-seeing-what-nhl-is-all-about\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora\u2019s Galajda seeing \u201cwhat NHL is all about\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

Far off of any team\u2019s wishlist at the NHL Draft in 2016, goaltender Matthew Galajda finds himself this July sporting a Calgary Flames logo on his chest.
\nPosting the top save percentage in the entire NCAA in six seasons can do that.
\nEarning more honours in one rookie season than most keepers of the cage do in an entire collegiate career, including the NCAA All-American First Team, the ECAC\u2019s Goaltender of the Year, the ECAC\u2019s Rookie of the Year, and the Ivy League\u2019s Player of the Year, the Aurora native takes to the ice at the Scotiabank Saddledome this month for the Flames\u2019 NHL Development Camp.
\nGalajda led the Big Red to their first division title this season in thirteen years, his bygone-era-style save percentage of .940 opening the eyes of a handful of NHL teams.
\n\u201cI didn\u2019t really know what to expect when I got there but everything turned out beyond what I could\u2019ve ever imagined. I had a great team in front of me. We have a great defensive system.\u201d
\n\u201cThis is a kid that has just an unreal freshman college year,\u201d said Flames goaltending coach Jordan Sigalet, who said he followed Galajda when he played for the Victoria Grizzlies of the BCHL. \u201cI used to play for Victoria, so I still follow the team and the league.\u201d
\nThe first freshman goaltender ever to be shortlisted for the Hobey Baker, the NCAA\u2019s prestigious prize for Most Valuable Player, Galajda\u2019s nine shutouts led the league while posting consecutive shutouts three times.
\nAn alumnus of two seasons with the St. Andrew\u2019s Saints, the six-foot goaltender also cut his teeth with the minor Aurora Tigers.
\nHe won the CISAA championship with the Saints in both 2014 and 2015.
\nDespite consistently strong numbers throughout a young, but stellar career, Galajda was overlook by teams in the NHL Draft who needed help in the goalie department, something Sigalet said could have just come down to his size.
\n\u201cI think he\u2019s a guy that\u2019s always overlooked because of the size of the goalies in today\u2019s NHL,\u201d said Sigalet of the six-foot Galajda.
\nSigalet went on to name players like Anti Raanta, Philip Grubauer, and Carter Hutton, all keepers considered \u201cundersized\u201d in today\u2019s NHL, as helping to change the stigma.
\n\u201cAs long as they\u2019re smart, read the play well, know how to make themselves look big and play big, they can have success at the pro level.\u201d
\nFor Galajda, however, it is players like Roberto Luongo and Marc-Andre Fleury that he tends to style his play after, lauding both for their attitudes and calm demeanour between the pipes.
\nHe took that attitude to the big-league ice when he skated in camp for the first time on Friday, though in the short-term, it\u2019s back to the books for the 20-year old sophomore in the fall.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s nice, my first development camp; nice to see what the NHL is all about,\u2019\u2019 said Galadja. \u201cBut going into the next year at Cornell, I still have to have the same mindset as I did a year ago.\u201d
\nGalajda studies hotel administration at the Ithica, New York university, majoring in financial real-estate planning, though admits his end goal is similar to that of most of his teammates: to reach the professional leagues.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Far off of any team\u2019s wishlist at the NHL Draft in 2016, goaltender Matthew Galajda finds himself this July sporting a Calgary Flames logo on his chest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5uB","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 16:07:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}