Dennis Hildeby
Hildeby is Tampa Bay's clear backup goalie behind Andrei Vasilevskiy, a role he stepped into after an offseason trade from Toronto, and he opened his Lightning tenure with a strong debut start.
Role
Hildeby is Vasilevskiy's backup and arrived via an offseason trade that sent Nick Paul and draft picks to Toronto for him, with Tampa Bay then moving on from Jonas Johansson to clear the No. 2 job for him. He made his Lightning debut on October 8 against Minnesota, stopping 34 of 36 shots in a 3-2 win and earning the game's second star, a start Raw Charge's game preview described as giving Vasilevskiy rest before a trip to New York with no back-to-back games on the schedule until the end of the month. Rotowire's player page projects him for a 20-to-25-plus start workload behind Vasilevskiy over the course of the season, while the team's beat coverage has him simply as the clear No. 2 to begin the year.
He is locked in as a true backup on a contender rather than a fringe third-stringer, and his debut showing (34 saves on 36 shots, second star) is an early sign he can hold the net when Vasilevskiy needs rest; Dobber Hockey's dynasty goalie piece frames him as someone who could carry real value simply by letting a strong Tampa Bay team rest its starter regularly.
Vasilevskiy is the entrenched workhorse coming off a Vezina-caliber season, and Hildeby's own track record in Toronto (a 5-7-4 mark with an .912 save percentage over 20 games) was unspectacular, so outlets like Raw Charge note his early starts look opportunistic (a rest day with no back-to-back looming) rather than a sign of an expanding share of the net.
Where analysts split
Analysts broadly agree he is the No. 2 behind Vasilevskiy, but projections differ on raw workload, with Rotowire's player page pegging him for something in the 20-to-25-plus range this season while other fantasy previews put the ceiling closer to 25-30 starts; the real question those numbers disagree on is simply how often Tampa Bay chooses to rest Vasilevskiy over 84 games.
Research confidence: reported. Outlooks are grounded in web search over current reporting and refreshed through the season.
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