Jesper Vikman called up by the Knights: Why it happened and why it matters

Jesper Vikman was called up by the Golden Knights on Friday morning, marking his first regular-season stint on the Knights' main roster. The 2020 5th-round pick had previously spent his entire tenure in the organization split between the AHL and ECHL, having played eight games for the Silver Knights this season.

Why it happened for the Vegas Golden Knights

As Vegas Hockey Knight covered earlier today, Carter Hart's tenure with the Knights has already hit a speedbump, as he is now day-to-day with an undisclosed injury just days after a successful VGK debut. With the team embarking on a four-game, nine-day eastern road trip, and Akira Schmid having only started three (or more) consecutive games once this season (11/18 vs NYR, 11/20 @ UTA, 11/22 @ ANA), Vegas needed insurance if Hart ends up unable to make any starts on the trip.

As we know, Adin Hill is still likely a long way off from returning; we can only speculate as to why it wasn't recent first-game-winner Carl Lindbom being recalled back to the roster, though the Knights may want to give Vikman some NHL minutes to evaluate him before his ELC expires this summer.

Why it matters

To put it succinctly, Vegas is running out of time to see if they have anything in Vikman. He's spent parts of four seasons in the organization, but his only experience with the main VGK squad thus far has been serving as the backup for a handful of preseason games; tonight's game against the Devils was his first game on an NHL roster period.

While one usually doesn't expect much out of a fifth-round pick, Vegas has let drafted goalies walk unsigned before; 2017 4th-rounder Maksim Zhukov and 2018 7th-rounder Jordan Kooy didn't play a single game under a VGK contract. As such, signing Vikman to an ELC meant that, to some degree, Vegas believed in him as a prospect.

However, he's also struggled in the minor leagues. In 31 games played over four seasons with the Henderson Silver Knights, he's yet to post a save percentage over .900, and he's never been able to seize the starting job; he was stuck behind Isaiah Saville and Jiri Patera in 2023-24, then got bumped down to the ECHL for most of the past season behind now-NHL-starter Schmid and the aforementioned Lindbom.

His numbers in the ECHL show a more mixed picture; though his save percentage was once again under .900 and his goals-against average sat just under 3.20, he was able to post a 24-15-3 record, and his .914 save percentage during the Tahoe Knight Monsters' second-round playoff run (including a first-round sweep) stick out in a positive way relative to the rest of his career. Though he's made it back on Henderson's roster this year, his stats are once again poor; however, one can also make the argument that this is a product of Henderson's somewhat weak roster, as Akira Schmid's NHL tenure with Vegas has been far superior to his AHL tenure with Henderson last year.

The bottom line for Jesper Vikman

Either way, Vikman is, up to this point, a mystery box of a prospect; he's played poorly in the minor leagues, but the organization clearly believes he still has potential, and he may get the chance to show that off at somepoint within the next few games. For the sake of the knights' often-fraught goalie depth, let's hope they're right.