Michael DiPietro’s path to the NHL has been anything but straight, but the Boston Bruins finally have a goaltender who looks fully arrived.
The former Vancouver Canucks third-round pick is thriving in Boston after years of detours, delays and frustration. Through five starts this season, DiPietro has won four times and posted one shutout. His .925 save percentage ranks fifth among the 59 goaltenders who have made at least five starts this season.
That kind of production feels a long way from where this story started.
Vancouver selected DiPietro in the third round of the 2017 NHL Draft, and for a while he looked like the organization’s next big goaltending hope behind Thatcher Demko. He was named the OHL Goaltender of the Year in his post-draft season after leading the league in shutouts, then earned a spot with Team Canada as the third-string goalie at the 2018 World Championship. The following year, he was Canada’s starter at the 2019 World Junior Championship and finished the tournament with the lowest goals-against average of any goaltender, even though Canada went out early.
Then the wheels came off.
DiPietro’s first NHL start came in a situation that was never built for a 19-year-old. Vancouver entered the 2018-19 season with Jacob Markstrom, Anders Nilsson, Thatcher Demko and Richard Bachman in the system, but that depth disappeared piece by piece.
Bachman’s season ended with an Achilles tear in December. Nilsson was traded to the Ottawa Senators.
Mike McKenna was claimed off waivers by the Philadelphia Flyers after the Canucks tried to send him to Utica. Demko then tweaked his knee in early February, and when Markstrom was ruled out the morning of a game against the San Jose Sharks because of “lower body tightness,” DiPietro was thrown into the fire.
The result was ugly. Vancouver’s defense gave him little help, and he allowed three goals on the first five shots.
By the end of the night, he had given up seven goals on 24 shots. The next day, the Canucks brought in Marek Mazanec from the New York Rangers for a seventh-round pick, but the damage was done.
Even after that, DiPietro’s road kept getting stranger. He struggled when he returned to the Ottawa 67’s in the OHL, then got back on track in his rookie pro season with the 2019-20 Utica Comets before COVID-19 shut that season down on March 11, 2020.
The shortened 2020-21 season brought another roadblock. As Vancouver’s top goaltending prospect, DiPietro was placed on the taxi squad and stayed there for months while Demko and Braden Holtby remained healthy. He barely played, and InGoal Magazine’s Kevin Woodley said at the time, “What they’re doing to Mikey DiPietro right now borders on - criminal is too strong a word, but it’s not far from it,” adding, “I’ve talked to other organizations that have models in terms of goaltenders and how they get to the NHL, and the one thing that you can’t skip is games played.”
DiPietro was finally sent back to Utica at the end of April and made his first start in over a year on April 30, 2021. He played three more games there, meaning he appeared in just four games over 19 months as a 21-year-old prospect.
By 2022, Vancouver had moved on. The Canucks traded DiPietro to Boston in the deal for Jack Studnicka, and the Bruins sent him to the ECHL.
That stretch got so difficult that DiPietro considered walking away from hockey. His dad talked him out of it, and he kept going.
That decision has paid off.
DiPietro reported to the Maine Mariners, put up a .918 save percentage in 29 games, and earned his way to the Providence Bruins. From there, he turned himself into one of the AHL’s best.
In 2024-25, he won the Baz Bastien Memorial Award after finishing with a .927 save percentage in 40 games. In 2025-26, he led the AHL in save percentage and goals-against average and won both the Baz Bastien and the Les Cunningham Award as the league’s most valuable player.
Now he’s carrying that form to Boston. On Oct.
22, Hockey Fights Cancer Night, DiPietro got the start and posted his first career shutout. For a goalie whose career spent years getting knocked off course, that was the clearest sign yet that he’s finally found his footing.
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