New York Rangers Player Preview: Antti Raanta

Last season, backup goaltender Antti Raanta went 11-6-2 while playing in 25 games for the New York Rangers. He was solid and came up big when necessary. Now it’s time to determine… Can he do it again in 2016-2017?

The Finnish undrafted free agent Antti Raanta, weighing in at 193lbs, started his first game for the New York Rangers early in the season. Unfortunately, a slap shot to the head left him with a concussion after a game against the Minnesota Wild. He was placed on injured reserve, but as a testament to his character, he made a stunning 10-day recovery. After that, he played very well for the team.

2015-2016 Season Traditional Stats:

Games Played: 25

Wins: 11

Losses: 8

Shutouts: 1

Goals Against Average: 2.24

Goals Against: 43

Save Percentage: .914

Season in Review

Antti Raanta came into his first season with the New York Rangers and played a very strong game right away. In his first game with the team against the eventual Western Conference Champion San Jose Sharks, his performance was stellar. He posted a shutout, which got the fans excited for his play over the course of the season.

New York Rangers

Raanta would go on to win his next three games for the team while continuing to showcase his talent.

If you were to look at his game by game statistics, you would realize that the majority of Raanta’s losses were in games he only played one period or a few minutes in. For example, in his first “loss,” he played a mere 10:54 in a game against the Montreal Canadiens. It was a game the team lost 5-1. The same goes for games against the Oilers, Predators, and Islanders later in the season.

The point here is that Raanta is overall very reliable. When Lundqvist had gotten hurt late in the season after McDonagh had accidentally crashed into him, Raanta was there. In the last few playoff games of the season, the team put him in net, and he didn’t let many in, even as he watched his team get eliminated in the embarrassing fashion they did.

A lot was expected out of the Rangers heading into the season, and some will argue Raanta could have been a little better towards the end. But you cannot put all the fault on the goaltenders. The team in front of them is what allows them to not be exhausted every night, and as Rangers’ fans everywhere know, the defensive situation isn’t exactly the best, to say the least.

On March 6th, there was a game against the Islanders that was perhaps one of the worst losses of the season for the boys in blue. They went down 3-0 very early in the game but managed to rally their way back (to their credit, something the Rangers are quite skilled at doing).

However, Raanta let in a goal right off a faceoff with less than 4 minutes left in regulation, and after the Isles tallied an empty-netter, the final score was 6-4. That was flat-out disappointing for everyone. But even there, where Raanta could have been better, the defense has to take a good part of the blame.

2016-2017 Season Projected Stats:

Games Started: 23

Wins: 15

Losses: 8

Shutouts: 3

Goals Against Average: 2.01

Goals Against: 36

Save Percentage: .920

Reasoning: Antti Raanta has a quote that he stuck with from the minute he came to New York. It was, “When you’re the backup, you have to prove yourself every night.” And he has surely lived up to that quote. However, I’m sure he feels there are nights when he could have been better, particularly that night against the Rangers’ biggest rivals the Isles.

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Raanta puts a lot of pressure on himself to play to the best of his ability. He also seems very comfortable with the contract he agreed to for two years with the team. Only time will tell how good he will be, but there is much reason to assume he will be stellar. There are high expectations to meet and big shoes to fill this offseason, and that goes for the entire team. And the countdown continues…