Kevin Lalande

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Kevin Lalande (born February 19, 1987 in Kingston, Ontario) is an amateur ice hockey goalie. Lalande plays for the Belleville Bulls in the OHL. Lalande has lived most of his life in Clarence Creek, Ontario, a small town outside of Hawkesbury.

Lalande was the star goalie for the CJHL's Hawkesbury Hawks for three years when he was drafted to the Bulls in the ninth round of the 2003 OHL Priority Selection. One of his teammates in Hawkesbury was Benoit Pouliot, formerly of the Sudbury Wolves and now with the Minnesota Wild. Lalande made the team in 2003 but he rarely played. In his second year, his official rookie season, he was the only backup to veteran Eric Tobia, and he actually did better than Tobia in terms of wins and goals-against-average. Due to this, he was drafted in the fifth round (128th overall) of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft to the Calgary Flames, a team known for stellar goalies, most notably Miikka Kiprusoff. (Calgary was allowed to draft Lalande after a draft pick trade with the Carolina Hurricanes.)

In his second full year with Belleville, Lalande had the starting job all to himself. Lalande, along with Dan LaCosta of the Barrie Colts (a third-round pick -- 93rd overall -- of the Columbus Blue Jackets at the 2004 NHL Entry Draft), was chosen to be the Eastern Conference's all-star goalie for the 2006 OHL All-Star Classic; Lalande was one of two Bulls on that All-Star Team, the other being converted defenceman Matt Kelly who now plays for the Vancouver Canucks's ECHL farm team, the Victoria Salmon Kings.

In Belleville, though, Lalande finally had a good backup goalie in Sebastian Dahm, an import selection from Copenhagen, Denmark, who played for Malmo of the Swedish Junior Leagues. Surprisingly, Lalande and Dahm were born only nine days apart in Lalande's favour, as Dahm's birthdate is February 28, 1987. Lalande also had help from Mike Murphy, who was the superstar goaltender for the Greater Kingston Predators. While Lalande and Dahm were the main tandem, Murphy stayed with Belleville for their playoff run, especially after Lalande suffered a season-ending knee injury. During the 2005-06 OHL season, Lalande played in 50 out of 68 games with a 24-17-3-2 record. He recorded three shutouts, had a 3.08 GAA and a .916 save percentage.

Lalande returned to the Bulls for the 2006/07 season with a familiar face there. One of his fellow Flames prospects, Matt Pelech, was traded to the Bulls from the London Knights during the offseason, where he was traded to from the Sarnia Sting in 2006 in exchange for Matt McCready. Lalande once again was the #1 goalie. With Dahm traded to Sarnia during the offseason, Murphy will be the main backup and rookie Edward Pasquale was the third in the Bulls' goaltending tandem.

In late December of 2006, in a game against the Erie Otters, Lalande was involved in a line brawl that erupted between players from the two teams. Lalande got into a fight with Otters goalie Jonathan Laniel; the scrap caused Lalande to break his blocker hand and subsequently made him miss a month of action. He spent the first two games of his injury with a suspension. His first game back was against the Peterborough Petes and he recorded a shutout.

In January of 2007, Lalande was signed to a standard three-year entry level contract with Calgary.