Bridgeport Islanders Sign Goalie Parker Gahagen
Bridgeport has elected to bring another veteran into the goalie room
The Bridgeport Islanders have added one more goalie to their roster: signing 32-year-old Parker Gahagen to a one-year AHL contract.
Gahagen, a native of Buffalo NY, has been playing in the minor league circuit since 2017 after four strong seasons at Army. He split last year between the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms and the ECHL’s Reading Royals. Gahagen posted a .902 SV% with Reading, and a .916 with Lehigh Valley. He went 12-4-3 across 22 AHL games.
He played extremely well during the 2025 Calder Cup playoffs. In five games, Gahagen recorded a SV% of .929 and a GAA of 2.00. Both marks were good for fifth-best in the AHL playoffs. He went 3-1-0, before suffering an injury.
The move adds some needed depth at Bridgeport’s most important position, as the Islanders have not had a qualified goaltender record a SV% over .900 since Corey Schneider in 2022-23. Gahagen has posted a SV% over .900 every year since 2019-20. The only question relates to workload, as Gahagen has not started more than 35 games in any given season.
Additionally, the move creates a logjam in Bridgeport’s goalie room. With Ilya Sorokin, Semyon Varlamov, and David Rittich in the NHL, many thought that one of the Islanders’ goalie prospects (Henrik Tikkanen and Tristan Lennox) would occupy Bridgeport’s backup slot.
However, the signing of Gahagen seems to fill that backup slot. So where will New York Islanders management elect to play the prospects? Only time will tell.
featured image courtesy of the Reading Royals