Tokarski first made noise when he led the Prince Albert Mintos to the 2006 all-Canada midget championship - the prestigious TELUS Cup. He played with the Mintos because he went undrafted in the WHL bantam draft. In fact, it took his mother Emailing teams to get him a spot on a midget team. The year after the TELUS Cup, he tried out for and made the Spokane Chiefs. He split goaltending duties with Kevin Armstrong before taking over the starting job for the Chiefs in the playoffs. He would lead Spokane to the WHL championship, where he won MVP of the finals, and the Memorial Cup championship, where he won tournament MVP. Later in 2008, he was chosen as the surprise starter for Canada's World Junior team, and though he struggled early, he eventually led Canada to the gold medal, winning player of the game honors in the gold medal game. He made his professional debut in 2009 for Norfolk of the AHL, dropping a close 2-1 game on the road to the defending Calder Cup champion Hershey Bears. He won his second start, a 2-0 shutout of the Manchester Monarchs. Tokarski finished his rookie AHL campaign with a 27-25-3 record in 52 appearances after assuming sole starting duties down the stretch after Jaroslav Janus went down with a minor knee injury. Tokarski also made 2 relief appearances at the NHL level with the Lightning in 2009-2010, with his NHL debut taking place on 1/16/10 in Florida against the Panthers.
