Lukáš Dostál was a bit starstruck.

In the summer of 2024, the Anaheim Ducks goalie met legendary Czech netminder Dominik Hašek for the first time. The surprise meeting was on the stage of the Zlata Hokejka (Golden Stick) award show in the Czech Republic, where Hašek congratulated Dostál for being named one of the country’s best hockey players.

Hašek is athletic royalty in the small, hockey-loving country in central Europe. The Czech Republic (also known as Czechia) has a storied history of goaltending, of which Hašek is the star. Not only is he arguably the best to ever play the position, he also delivered his country its first and only Olympic gold medal in 1998. Dostál joked afterward that he might skip a shower that night following a handshake with Hašek.

The moment between the two on stage was a symbolic passing of the torch. Now, Dostál leads a new generation of talented Czech goalies that may be its deepest yet. As Czechia begins play in the men’s hockey tournament at the Olympics on Thursday against Canada, the latest wave of Czech goalies – led by Dostál – gives the nation hope that it can shock the world again, as it did with Hašek in the crease.

Dostál, Karel Vejmelka of the Utah Mammoth and Dan Vladař of the Philadelphia Flyers are Czechia’s three goalies. It’s still unknown how Czechia, with three games in four days in the preliminary round, might split its goaltending duties, but Dostál is considered the best option.

Dostál was born in Brno, Czechia in 2000, roughly two years after the greatest moment in the country’s hockey history. Hašek led the Czechs on a stunning run to a gold medal at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan. That year, Hašek allowed only six total goals in six games. With his flashy, acrobatic style, he shut down the powerhouse Canadian team in a semifinal shootout thriller, then shut out the Russians in the gold-medal game.

“Obviously I’ve seen a lot of 1998 in Nagano,” Dostál said. “That was running on the TV all of the time (while I was growing up), so I saw plenty of that.”

Now, 28 years after Hašek backstopped a squad of underdogs to Olympic gold,​​ Dostál hopes to do the same.

“Especially in these tournaments, the goalie can steal a game,” said Vegas Golden Knights forward Tomáš Hertl, who is one of Czechia’s top forwards. “That’s a great starting piece for us, because we might not have that many NHL players. In these tournaments, when you see upsets, it starts with the goalie.”

Only 26 Czechs have played in the NHL this season, and eight of them are goalies. While the country only makes up 2.6 percent of the league’s forwards and 1.1 percent of its defensemen, Czechia accounts for nearly 10 percent of the league’s goalies.

Dostál’s emergence as one of the most talented goalies in the Western Conference has helped Anaheim turn the corner on its rebuild and enter playoff contention. Vejmelka has become a true workhorse starter for the Mammoth, and is currently tied with Andrei Vasilevskiy for the most wins in the NHL. Vladař is having a career year and has arguably been the Flyers’ best player.

Czechia had plenty of other Olympic options this year. Jakub Dobeš has had strong stretches for the Montreal Canadiens and David Rittich has played lights-out behind Ilya Sorokin on Long Island. Petr Mrazek, Vitek Vanecek and Jiri Patera have also earned starts elsewhere.

It’s an impressive list from a nation with a population a fraction of the size of the United States or Canada.

Top 5 NHL goalie-producing countries

CountryNHL goalies

Canada

22

United States

21

Sweden

10

Czechia

8

Finland

7

“It’s huge for our country,” Vejmelka said. “We are a small country, but we have so many great goalies, and they play huge roles on their teams, which is great.”

There aren’t enough Czech NHL defensemen to even fill out a blue line, but more than half of the Czech goalies in the NHL didn’t receive an invite to Milan. Producing top goalies is nothing new for the country. Hašek and Tomáš Vokoun are the clear top two all-time, but Petr Mrázek, Ondřej Pavelec, Roman Turek, Michal Neuvirth and Roman Cechmánek all carved out impressive NHL careers.

“When I was a kid, I watched almost every tournament for the Czech hockey team,” Vejmelka said. “So whoever was in the net, I was excited to watch him. It maybe built me, a bit, as a goalie too.”

Dostál can remember looking up to the goalies on his hometown professional team, HC Kometa Brno. Jiri Trvaj and Finnish-born Sasu Hovi were Brno’s top netminders at the time, both of whom Dostál idolized as a child.

“It’s actually funny, I have a picture of me and Hovi when I was like 10 years old,” Dostál said. “We were doing some kind of advertisement for the current generation, and the generation coming up. Then, eight or nine years after that, we took a similar picture on the ice, after I was drafted (by Anaheim). So that was pretty cool. It’s funny how small the world is.”

Lukáš Dostál poses for photos with former HC Kometa Brno goalie Sasu Hovi as a child (top) and after being drafted to the NHL (bottom). (Photos courtesy of Lukáš Dostál)

Once a child in the stands cheering on his countrymen in Brno, Dostál is now one of his nation’s top goalies, and leads a resurgence of Czech netminders across the NHL.

“There had been a little break, and now we have a lot of Czech goalies in the NHL, in very good positions, so obviously that makes me happy,” Dostál said. “I love to see that.”

As recently as the 2019-20 season, only three Czech goalies appeared in NHL games. What led to the recent influx? Dostál credits a goalie coach by the name of Radek Toth, who led an effort to unify the development philosophy for youth goalies in Czechia. Back in 2014, the Czech Ice Hockey Association appointed Toth to a newly created position as the head of goaltending with hopes of standardizing goalie coaching across the country.

“We were essentially starting from scratch,” Toth explained. “The first task was to assemble a coaching team and think together about the best development path for our goalies, and where our system needed to improve. What proved most effective was the collaboration between young coaches – hungry for new information and education – and coaches who had rich playing careers behind them.”

The group drew inspiration from Sweden and Finland, both of which have a long history of producing technically sound goaltenders, and combined it with their own philosophies.

“For example, Finnish goalies were excellent skaters and used very active hands,” Toth explained. “Swedish goalies were strong in their positioning when defending plays from behind the net.”

Within two years, Toth and his team had built development programs across almost all age groups, running nationwide in Czechia.

“These programs helped us promote a unified methodology throughout the entire hockey community,” Toth said. “We involved club goalie coaches in every project, and for the youngest age groups, we even invited the parents. In my opinion, the Regional Association Coaches Project was absolutely crucial.”

Most of today’s Czech goalies grew up and developed in that environment. And while Dostál, Vejmelka and Vladař all play different styles, there are plenty of commonalities. They play a patient game, holding their edges as long as possible and waiting out shooters. They’re quiet and efficient in the crease, with little wasted movement.

It’s very different from Hašek’s wild acrobatics from the ’90s, but the trait all of Czechia’s best goalies share with the Hall of Famer is how they read and anticipate plays.

“I would call it active goaltending,” Toth explained. “It’s built on several key elements: excellent skating, staying on your feet as long as possible, using active hands, and tying it all together with elite game-reading. In other words, the Lukáš Dostál style.”

This is the first time in 12 years that the NHL’s best will face off internationally. After watching the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament last February, Dostál expects it to be hockey at its highest level.

“It was beautiful to watch that hockey,” Dostál said. “I couldn’t be more excited to do my best and to be a part of the team.”

Czechia can’t match the sheer depth of the United States and Canada, but it has plenty of high-end talent. Up front they’ll be led by Hertl, David Pastrnak, Martin Necas and Pavel Zacha. The blue line will feature Filip Hronek and Radko Gudas.

And as Hašek proved in 1998, if the goaltending is strong enough, it can be the ultimate trump card. Dostál, Vejmelka and Vladař obviously aren’t quite at that level yet. Hašek had already won the Vezina Trophy three times at that point in his career, and was on his way to a Hart Trophy he won later that season, but the Olympic stage can produce instant legends. A hot goalie can convince a team it’s capable of the impossible.

The talented Czech goalies are practically salivating at the opportunity.

“At the international level, playing in the Olympics is the best thing you can achieve,” Dostál said. “To win a medal would be even greater. It’s going to be exciting times.”