Texas Adds Goalie Matt Jurusik on AHL Deal Ahead of Impending Taxi Squad Shuffling

(Credit: Lisa Jordan, Cre8 Studios)

The Texas Stars announced this afternoon that the club has signed goalie Matt Jurusik to an AHL two-way deal. Jurusik spent much of 2020-21 with Texas on a PTO and signed with Idaho this past summer on a standard deal.

With the addition of taxi squads for the foreseeable future and the potential for COVID to ravage the crucial position if something were to happen, Texas needed an insurance policy. They could have done a heck of a lot worse than Jurusik. He owns a 6-2-1 record in Idaho with a 1.66 GAA and .935 SV% in 10 appearances this season. He had a shutout with WBS on a PTO earlier this year.

The deal would make sense for Texas even without COVID. Jurusik is clearly performing well and the team does well to lock him up as opposed to letting him head to another team in the AHL when the injury bug comes calling. As of now, Texas's goalie depth chart stands: Anton Khudobin, Adam Scheel, Colton Point, Matt Jurusik. The latter two are in Idaho.

Jake Kupsky is the other Idaho goalie, who is also no slouch. He leads the ECHL in GAA by just one one-hundredth at 1.65. He owns a 7-2 record with a 0.927 SV. Second place in GAA is Jurusik.

Here's the release:

The Texas Stars, American Hockey League affiliate of the NHL's Dallas Stars, announced today the team signed goaltender Matt Jurusik to a standard player contract.

Jurusik, 24, will continue to be assigned to ECHL’s Idaho Steelheads, where he has a 6-2-1 record, a 1.66 goals-against average and .935 save percentage in 10 appearances this season. He also started two games on a professional try-out with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins earlier this month and went 1-1-0, with a 2.00 GAA and a .926 save percentage. Jurusik earned a 28-save shutout in his AHL debut Dec. 12 as the Penguins beat Springfield 6-0.

The 6-foot-2, 194-pound native of La Grange, Ill. originally signed a professional try-out with Texas on Jan. 26 following his senior season at Michigan Tech University.