On Sunday night, not long after the drubbing from the Boston Bruins earlier in the day, the Chicago Blackhawks decided to switch around their lineup a little and that included sending down goalie Antti Raanta down to Rockford of the AHL and calling up Scott Darling to take his place.
Raanta came in for some relief play on Sunday, taking over for Corey Crawford, allowing 2 goals on 16 shots and not picking up a decision, but that wasn't enough for the Blackhawks to feel confident moving forward. Darling is scheduled to make the start on Tuesday night, so this could be translated as a shake-up for the entire roster, including the team's number one.
This season, Raanta hasn't been bad in the back-up position, picking up 7 wins and 2 shutouts in 14 appearances, averaging 1.3 points for every 60 minutes in the net, but I would begin to wonder if this was a move for the morale of the team, maybe they all needed a kick in the pants on the roster.
Raanta was a Week Eighteen Waiver Draft pick-up for Grant K., thinking he could immediately improve his goaltending using a goalie on a top end team, but for the foreseeable future, that won't be the case. The projected games have been removed from Grant's totals for the week and he won't be collecting any AHL minutes or points this week.
Since the start of Week Nineteen, Raanta has only been in the Chicago net for a total of 93 minutes and has yet to register a point for Grant.
Grant's team starts the week in 18th place, 30 points out of the top 10.
An updated list of injuries can be found here.
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