The Detroit Red Wings drafted goaltender Rudy Guimond, a 6’4,” 179-pound goaltender from Taft School of the US High School Prep league, with the 169th overall pick in this past July’s NHL Draft in Nashville.
Guimond looked very good in his worn, slightly floppy pads during the Red Wings’ 2023 Summer Development Camp, and today, Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen offers an analysis of the USHL-bound goaltender, who will spend a “gap year” with the Cedar Rapids Roughriders before heading to Yale University:
[Guimond] is scheduled to play in the United States Hockey League and won’t enroll at Yale as a freshman until 2024-25. That timetable fits well into the Red Wings’ goalie development plan. GM Steve Yzerman and his assistant GM Kris Draper seemed to place special emphasis this summer on strengthening their goalie pipeline. They drafted two goalies (Trey Augustine and Guimond) and re-signed John Lethemon.
Late last season, they signed Red Wings draft pick Jan Bednar, presumably to use in Toledo this season. Sebastian Cossa is clearly the team’s goalie of the future, but Augustine is highly regarded. Plus, the Red Wings seem to like Colgate goalie Carter Gylander. He’s 6-foot-4 and was drafted in the seventh round in 2019.
NHL Central Scouting ranked Guimond 17th overall among North American goalies. Augustine was ranked No. 3 in North America. That probably puts Guimond in the project category. But he is almost 6-foot-3, and scouts seem to like his athleticism.
Continued; as he’s coming out of high school hockey, it will do Guimond good to play in a league where the best of the college-bound players skate in the USHL, and then, the lanky goaltender (who grew up as a Red Wings fan in Quebec) will begin his maturation in earnest.
