In a season where just about everything went wrong for the Ottawa Senators, goaltending may have actually been the biggest issue.
Coming into the season it looked like a strength but it was anything but in 2017/2018. Both Craig Anderson and Mike Condon took significant steps back last year and it cost the team on the ice.
Anderson, with his brand new two year extension in hand, posted a 3.32 goals against average and an .898 save percentage. That GAA was his worst since his days in Chicago some 14 years ago. It was his first sub-.900 sv% since his 2nd season with the Colorado Avalanche. His .898 sv% was ranked 48th in the NHL. It was bad from start to finish.
Condon’s numbers were a bit better than Anderson’s but still, well-below his career average and nowhere near good enough for an NHL goalie. A 3.25 GAA, a .902 sv% and a hideous 5-17-5 record. Certainly not what the Senators were expecting when they signed Condon to a 3 year, $7.2 million extension last summer. Condon will make $2.5 million this year and $3.0 million in the final season of his deal.
And on paper, the situation doesn’t look much better heading into the 2018/2019 campaign.
For now, Craig Anderson is expected to be back for another season as the starting goalie. In the flurry of news surrounding the team at this year’s Draft, there were rumours that Craig Anderson had requested a trade and that the Senators had given his agent permission to try and facilitate a deal. Justin Duberman, Anderson’s agent, was quick to dismiss that report but the status of his trade request remains unclear as we approach August.
That Anderson would ask for a trade before his current extension kicked in was a bit of a head-scratcher. It’s even stranger that nobody has really addressed the issue since then.
While it sounds like Pierre Dorion asked around at the Draft, demand was apparently limited for a 37 year old goalie coming off one of the worst seasons of his career and with two more years on his deal. Go figure.
So at this point, the Senators are counting on Anderson continuing his bizarre trend of alternating good years and bad years.
Help is on the way but it’s going to take some time.
Filip Gustavsson, acquired in the trade that sent Derick Brassard to Pittsburgh, is already being tabbed as the goaltender of the future. He’s expected to split duties in Belleville with Mike McKenna and Marcus Hogberg (the OTHER goaltender of the future). Joel Daccord is starting to look like a prospect that has a chance to be a professional goalie at some point and Kevin Mandolese, selected in the 6th round of the 2018 Draft, certainly has potential.
So while there’s reason to be hopeful about goaltending in the future, there are legitimate concerns about where things currently stand.
Dorion is certainly rolling the dice by going with the same two guys next year. Although to be fair, the market wasn’t exactly flooded with goaltending options this summer and having both guys under impossible to move contracts made it pretty difficult to shake things up. Instead, the GM will be counting on improved team defence and bounce back years from both Anderson and Condon. It’s hard to imagine both guys being that bad again next year.
If the Senators are going to rebound from an ugly season, a lot of it will depend on their goaltending. They sat 30th in the league when their season wrapped up in April and not surprisingly, they were also 30th in team save percentage.
That has to change if this team has any chance next year.
