JayTea

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Forum: Armchair-GMWed at 12:29 pm
Thread: Helping FLA get internal cap down
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Sagecoll</b></div><div>Yeah Minnesota is definitely a sensible destination for Hank given the Zucc relationship and the fact that he'd definitely start there.

The way I see it is that Minnesota probably thinks

1) Kaaponen is the long term goalie solution
2) They're trying to compete next year and don't want to do a rebuild

If that's the case, that probably means

1) They don't want Dubnyk playing for them since the more games he plays, the less probability the team has of making the playoffs
2) They don't want to sign one of the big name UFA goalies long term since that blocks Kaaponen.

So they need an option that they can both a) have short term b) is good enough to make 50 starts and give them a good chance of getting to the playoffs.

In terms of UFA goaltenders, I don't think there's really any options: Holtby, Crawford, Markstrom, Khudobin, Greiss are all going to want 3+ year deals. Underwhelming backups like Talbot and Smith are in the same boat as Dubnyk in that they'll probably take you out of playoff contention.

So realistically that leaves the trade market which for a short term deal means either Andersen or Lundqvist. Andersen probably costs too much for what Minnesota is looking for so Hank is the obvious choice, and all it costs really is a 4th liner and about 3 mil added to the cap. For a starting goaltender that's a small price to pay.</div></div>

Lundqvist wasn't much better than Stalock last year, so it's not an automatic that Lundqvist would start. You are correct that a rental on a 1 year deal would be smart IF they view Kahkonen as being the answer long term. Personally, I'd prefer Guerin reach out to Arizona and see if Raanta was available and what that might cost since Arizona may need to shed salary.