Joel Hofer: Blues Stats, Contract and Full Profile

Joel Hofer is a Canadian goaltender for the St. Louis Blues who won a World Junior gold medal, scored a goal in the American Hockey League, and spent one evening in Chicago hiding behind a wall. Joel Hofer is now the Blues’ first choice, which took longer than his numbers suggest it should have.

Fast facts: Joel Hofer
Current team	St Louis Blues, No. 30
Position	Goaltender
Catches	Left
Born	30 July 2000, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Height / weight	6-foot-5. The NHL lists 197 lbs, EliteProspects and PuckPedia 179
Drafted	2018, fourth round, 107th overall, St Louis Blues
Contract status	Two years at $3.4 million a season, signed 28 June 2025, restricted free agent after 2026-27
Previous clubs	Springfield Thunderbirds, Utica Comets, San Antonio Rampage, Portland Winterhawks, Swift Current Broncos

Why was Joel Hofer hiding in the hallway?

Because he was not dressed, and his coach says that was the coach’s fault.

On 7 January 2026 at the United Center, with Chicago leading 7-2 and about seven minutes left, Jim Montgomery signaled for a goaltending change. Jordan Binnington had given up seven goals and would finish the night having faced 35 shots. The cameras then found Hofer in the tunnel behind a wall, looking out.

Visiting backup goaltenders at the United Center have no seat on the players’ bench and watch from the dressing room instead, which is where Hofer was. He was not in full gear. And according to the Blues beat writer Lou Korac, a team gets only so much time to make a goaltending change before risking a delay-of-game penalty.

“The trainer was whizzing around trying to get his gear,” Pierre LeBrun said on TSN the following day. “So when Binnington realized Hofer wasn’t coming he said well, I guess I’m going back in.”

Binnington did not refuse to leave the ice. He waited by the bench door, as goaltenders do, for the man replacing him to come through it, then went back to his net and did not concede again. Montgomery addressed it a day later. “Binner had no issue [with the signal of being pulled]. He knew what we were doing there, so there was zero malcontent,” he said. “Ultimately, that all falls on me that Hofer wasn’t ready.”

Neither goaltender has ever commented publicly on it, and there was no fine, suspension, or formal club statement.

The channels and streams for every Blues game are in our guide to how to watch the St. Louis Blues.

What are Joel Hofer’s career stats?

Season	Team	League	GP	W-L-OTL	GAA	SV%	SO
2017-18	Swift Current Broncos	WHL	19	8-3-2	2.61	.914	1
2018-19	Swift Current Broncos	WHL	30	6-21-3	4.02	.904	1
2018-19	Portland Winterhawks	WHL	18	9-8-0	3.18	.911	2
2019-20	Portland Winterhawks	WHL	48	34-8-5	2.49	.915	4
2020-21	Utica Comets	AHL	10	4-6-0	3.33	.898	2
2021-22	Springfield Thunderbirds	AHL	39	18-14-2	2.96	.905	1
2021-22	St Louis Blues	NHL	2	1-1-0	3.07	.880	0
2022-23	Springfield Thunderbirds	AHL	47	27-15-5	2.50	.921	5
2022-23	St Louis Blues	NHL	6	3-1-1	3.22	.905	0
2023-24	St Louis Blues	NHL	30	15-12-1	2.65	.914	1
2024-25	St Louis Blues	NHL	31	16-8-3	2.64	.904	1
2025-26	St Louis Blues	NHL	46	24-13-5	2.61	.910	6

Completed seasons from his first junior year. Prep-academy years and one American Hockey League appearance in 2018-19 are left out.

Joel Hofer’s six shutouts in one season are three-quarters of every shutout he had in the NHL to that point. He had eight in total after it, and six came in that one season, the second most in the league that year.

Is Joel Hofer the Blues’ starting goaltender?

He is, and the search suggestions still ask because the arrangement was unsettled for a long time. Montgomery ran the position on form rather than hierarchy. “We’re just going to roll with the hot hand and see how it goes,” he said in December 2025, after trying strict alternation and abandoning it.

The form then answered the question. Across that whole season Hofer went 24-13-5 at 2.61 and .910, and Binnington went 13-20-7 at 3.33 and .873, his worst full season. By the following October, the arrangement had settled: Hofer starts, Binnington backs up.

The coach’s assessment went up with the numbers. “He’s really focused, he’s really matured,” Montgomery said in October 2026. “I think we’re starting to see a goalie that is blossoming into a potential top-10 goalie in the League.” Captain Brayden Schenn had said that in December 2025: “Not to put a lot of pressure on the guy, but he’s going to be a very, very good goalie in this league for a long time.”

What did Joel Hofer do at the World Juniors?

He won gold with Canada in 2020, and he was not supposed to be the one who did it. Hofer went to the tournament behind Nico Daws and got the net by accident: Daws was pulled during a 6-0 group-stage defeat by Russia, and Hofer took the net for all but one of the games that followed.

In the final, against the same Russian team, Canada trailed 1-3 and won 4-3, and Hofer saved 35 of 38 shots. The IIHF’s own tournament statistics put him first among qualifying goaltenders at 1.60 and 93.92 percent, and he took the Directorate Award as best goaltender and a media all-star place.

“That was definitely the biggest game of my life,” he said when he got home to Winnipeg. “After the 6-0 loss, we wanted revenge on them.”

Did Joel Hofer score a goal?

He did, on 12 May 2022, for Springfield against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in the Calder Cup playoffs, making him the second goaltender in Calder Cup playoff history to score. Goaltenders are usually credited with goals when the opposition puts the puck into its own net; Hofer shot this one himself, the length of the ice into an empty net.

It was the same postseason Springfield reached the Calder Cup final, with Hofer at 2.56 and .934 in ten playoff games.

Where is Joel Hofer from?

Winnipeg, and almost nobody wanted him on the way out. Hofer grew up in Headingley just west of the city, was cut from AAA tryouts as a boy, and ended up at the St. James Canadians at AA level. He was never selected in the Western Hockey League’s bantam draft either, went to an academy in Kelowna, and was listed by Swift Current, where he began as backup to Stuart Skinner.

His minor-league coach, Mike Morden, has not softened the story. “He was easily the best game goalie that I’d coached in a long time. Best game goalie, period,” he said.

His younger brother Ryan Hofer is also a professional forward, drafted by Washington in 2022.

What is Joel Hofer’s contract?

Two years and $6.8 million, signed on 28 June 2025, days before he was due to reach restricted free agency. PuckPedia puts the cap hit at $3.4 million a season through 2026-27, with no bonuses and no trade clauses, after which he becomes a restricted free agent with arbitration rights.