Since arriving in Chicago, Spencer Knight has become the Blackhawks’ clear No. 1 goalie, and the move that brought him to the Windy City already feels like a defining one for the franchise. Chicago dealt Seth Jones to the Florida Panthers to get Knight, the 13th overall pick in the 2019 NHL Draft, and then locked him in with a three-year extension carrying a modest $5.3 million cap hit. For a team still trying to climb back into contention with Connor Bedard leading the way, Knight is now part of the plan through the end of the decade.
Before landing with the Blackhawks, Knight had played 80 NHL games and gone 44-25-7. In Chicago, he has taken on a heavier load for a rebuilding club and has posted a 24-33-13 record.
One of the most notable parts of Knight’s career is that his name is not on the Stanley Cup. He debuted for Florida in 2020-21 and was flawless in a brief four-game run, going 4-0-0 with a .919 save percentage and 2.32 goals-against average.
But by the time the Panthers reached the 2023 Stanley Cup Final with Sergei Bobrovsky, Knight was behind Alex Lyon on the depth chart. When Florida won the Cup the next year, Knight did not appear in an NHL game that season and therefore was not eligible for engraving.
Still, he was around for the celebration. After spending 45 games with the Charlotte Checkers and putting together a 25-14-5 record, Knight was one of Florida’s black aces in the playoffs.
When the Panthers beat the Edmonton Oilers on June 24, 2024, Knight put on his pads and took a twirl with the Stanley Cup. His name may not be engraved on it, but he still had a memorable role in the moment, handing the trophy to head coach Paul Maurice for his first-ever Stanley Cup lift.
Knight’s resume with Team USA is loaded, too. He won Gold at the 2017 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge, then helped the United States to Silver at the 2018 IIHF U18 World Championship.
The next year, he added Bronze while leading the tournament in both goals-against average and save percentage. At the U20 World Juniors, he picked up Silver in 2019 and then helped Team USA win Gold in 2021, earning Top 3 Player on Team honors in back-to-back tournaments.
That same season at Boston College, he was named Hockey East Player of the Year and Goaltender of the Year and was a Hobey Baker Award finalist.
There’s also a geographic quirk to Knight’s path: he is one of only five goalies from Connecticut. As of 2026, the state has produced just 43 players total, with 38 skaters and five goalies.
Jonathan Quick stands out as the biggest name from Connecticut, with three Stanley Cup rings, a Conn Smythe Trophy and the most wins by an American-born goalie. Other Connecticut players mentioned in that group include Chris Drury, Max Pacioretty, Ron Hainsey and Nick Bonino.
Knight has played 150 games so far and ranks second all-time among Connecticut players, behind Quick’s 829, and his 68 wins trail Quick’s 410.
Knight also sits in a pretty rare draft lane. Since the NHL Amateur Draft began in 1963, only 39 goalies have gone in the first 15 picks.
The first was Ken Dryden, taken 14th overall by the Boston Bruins in 1964. When Florida picked Knight 13th in 2019, he became the first goalie taken that high since the Dallas Stars selected Jack Campbell 11th overall in 2010.
Over the past 10 years, only six goalies have gone in the first round, and just two landed in the top 15: Iaroslav Askarov at No. 11 in 2020 and Sebastian Cossa at No. 15 in 2021. A handful of famous goalies were drafted even higher, including Dryden, Grant Fuhr, Tom Barrasso, Roberto Luongo and Marc-André Fleury.
Knight is also tied to one of the NHL’s biggest historical moments. On April 4, 2025, Alex Ovechkin scored his 894th career goal on Knight to tie Wayne Gretzky’s all-time NHL record. Only one other goalie, Wade Flaherty, can say he was in net for one of hockey’s most iconic goals, giving up Gretzky’s final regular-season goal, No. 894, on March 29, 1999.
And there was one more headline moment later in 2025: Knight recorded the first and only hat trick of his NHL career in a 4-3 victory on Nov. 12, 2025.
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What makes this especially intriguing is that there is still no clarity on where he fits, or even whether he will be part of the organizations long-term picture at all. The Blackhawks have roster competition to sort through and trade conversations always linger this time of year, so Korchinskis unsigned status only adds to the uncertainty around a summer decision that could shape both his development and the teams blue-line plans. [Read more 🡒]