Although he is well supported by the airtight play of his Carolina Hurricanes teammates, Finnish goalkeeper Antti Raanta is nonetheless taking advantage of these playoffs to come out of the shadows.
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With a shutout against the New York Rangers on Friday night, Raanta improved to 5-2 since the start of the playoffs, posting a 1.83 goals-against average and a .939 save percentage. .
“I don’t feel like I needed to make huge saves,” the goaltender humbly commented after the game, as quoted by the National Hockey League website. Our guys made sure not to leave any rebounds or uncovered throws. The penalty kill was also great for us.”
Concretely, Raanta made 21 saves to collect his first career playoff shutout as the Hurricanes, winners of the first two games against the Rangers, won by the score of 2 to 0. The Canes players thus totaled 24 blocked shots during the game. Defender Brett Pesce notably did his part with five. Forward Jordan Staal is another who has made Raanta’s job easier by winning two-thirds of his faceoffs, 14 of 21.
little experience
Still, the 33-year-old Finaland goalkeeper does the job awfully well. Prior to this year, Raanta had never started a playoff game, instead making three relief appearances for Henrik Lundqvist with the Rangers in 2016 in a losing streak to the Pittsburgh Penguins. He was also used for two periods, spread over two games, in 2020 while wearing the colors of the Arizona Coyotes.
The rest of things are now likely to be awfully interesting between the Hurricanes and the Rangers since the series is transported, starting Sunday, to Madison Square Garden, in New York.
The Carolina team has won its first six home games since the start of the playoffs. It is the first club to accomplish such a feat since the Nashville Predators in 2017. That year, the Predators continued their journey to the Stanley Cup Finals, where they lost to the Penguins.
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