Ethan McCallum commits to RPI
The 6'4 goalie will tandem with Krawchuk to give the Engineers two good options in net
At the end of March, RPI picked up a commitment from ‘06 Goaltender Ethan McCallum. Listed at 6’4” and 202 LBs, McCallum is a 3 year WHL veteran who played for both the Saskatoon Blades and the Penticton Vees this season. Between the two, he had an overall 0.907 SV%, which was tied for 5th in the league among qualified goalies.
McCallum is a big, athletic goalie with very quick lateral movement and the ability to make highlight reel saves. He does a good job staying square to shooters and controlling rebounds. His ability to see the puck through traffic is also impressive. The main thing for McCallum to improve is his angles; he can tend to be deeper in his crease because of his size, but that will be taken advantage of by more skilled players. He can also overcommit sometimes and could use some improvement with his reads. Overall though, McCallum is a high quality goalie due to his size, athleticism, and rebound control. He has all the physical tools needed, and the areas of growth are mental with his angles and reads, which can be developed with more reps.
McCallum will enroll at RPI this fall and add a quality goalie to tandem with Krawchuk. While Krawchuk has definitely earned the net to start the year, McCallum is good enough to push him and compete with him for the #1 spot during the season, especially since Krawchuk did struggle with back to backs at times. It will likely start out with Krawchuk as the 1A with the majority of the starts and McCallum as the 1B, but it’s not an open and shut case for the season by any means. It’s easy to envision the two of them locking down the net for years to come, and that is now a very stable position for the Engineers. I’m excited to see McCallum in net for RPI this fall! Congratulations to Ethan and his family!