Czech Extraliga teams have increasingly shared playing time between their goaltenders, although established starters still receive plenty of opportunities, according to an analysis comparing four seasons from 1996/97 to 2025/26. The number of goalies used remained broadly steady at around 40 per season, or about three per team. Six to eight goalies in each season played at least 75% of their team’s time in net.
The average number of games played by each team’s busiest goalie fell by 2.86 between 1996/97 and 2025/26. Starters appeared in nearly 41 regular-season games on average 30 years ago, compared with 38 last season. Only two goalies played every regular-season game in the past 15 years: Tomáš Závorka for Karlovy Vary in 2013/14 and Landon Bow for Kladno in 2021/22.
The analysis identifies Třinec and Sparta as the strongest advocates of regular rotation. Marek Mazanec and Ondřej Kacetl split Třinec’s regular-season games 165–110 from 2021 to 2026, while Jakub Kovář and Josef Kořenář shared Sparta’s games 112–98 from 2022 to 2026.