Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on the 32 Thoughts: The Podcast – A Goaltending Roller Coaster episode on the Carolina Hurricanes goaltending situation with Antti Raanta, Frederik Andersen and their interest in the goaltending market.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “Okay, Elliotte, speaking of the Carolina Hurricanes as we’re going to talk a lot about goaltenders on today’s podcast.
Your thoughts on Antti Raanta. So he gets waived, he clears waivers goes to AHL Chicago, the Wolves. Interesting story there, we’ve talked about that before. Just your thoughts on what’s happened here with Raanta.
You know, Sebastian Aho talked about everybody on the team needing to take a deep look in the mirror after this player was waived. You can tell that, you know, this one cuts deep, the Carolina Hurricanes. Your thoughts on this situation?
Friedman: “Well, I wasn’t surprised that Raanta wasn’t claimed because he’s a $1.5 million guy and there’s simply not a lot of teams that can fit that, at what he’s doing. I think if his numbers had been a little bit better, or he had played a little bit better, what you know what’s interesting about this is, how many people just reached out to say that they felt terrible for Raanta the person because they really like him personally.
But the bottom line is, at the end of the day, Jeff, this is a results-oriented League and he’s a $1.5 million guy who’s unfortunately this year one of the worst statistical goaltenders in the NHL. So nobody was surprised he wasn’t claimed.
You know, there was a report about Frederik Andersen, potentially on Sunday, may be getting closer to playing. I was just told to be careful with that one. It’s, it’s just really uncertain. I don’t think anybody really has a good idea what Andersen’s status is going to be this year.
And the hurricanes have cast their lines in the NHL pond, they are asking around, they are looking around. They would do anything on any goalie if it made sense to them. So I think they’re kind of just going through that process right now because there isn’t a ton of clarity yet on Andersen.”