Jilted Raanta embraces role on winning team
Antti Raanta couldn’t hide his disappointment that the Blackhawks left his name off the Stanley Cup.
“I heard that frommy friends,” said Raanta, back in Chicago already as the New York Rangers’ backup goaltender. “I didn’t know what to think about that. There’s a number of howmany names you can put on there. It’s not there, so it’s not there. I know I was part of the team, so that’s good enough. What are you going to do?”
The Hawks were allotted 52 names to put on the Cup, but they chose not to include Raanta— who dressed in more than half the games but lost his backup job to Scott Darling before the playoffs began — according to the NHL. Instead, the Hawks petitioned to have Daniel Carcillo and Joakim Nordstrom put on the Cup, neither of whom met the criteria of playing in at least 41 games (or one Stanley Cup Final game).
Whether it had anything to do with the controversial story in a Finnish magazine that quoted Raanta as saying he rooted against the Hawks in the playoffs is anybody’s guess. But Raanta again clarified his comments, saying he was only bitter and frustrated for amoment after being recalled as a Black Ace. At the time, he wanted to stay in Rockford and play for the IceHogs during their playoff run.
“I hope everybody understands what I was trying to mean with that,” Raanta said. “I didn’t want to say anything bad about the Hawks. I understand the fans can be little disappointed in me. But hopefully they understand I wasn’t thinking that the whole playoff time. It was one hour in one day. When you’re frustrated, you have a lot of things going on in your mind. Hopefully everybody understands that and hopefully after this night everybody can forget that.”
Raanta got a pretty sweet consolation prize, though. Hawks vice president Al MacIsaac presented him with his gaudy championship ring before Wednesday’s morning skate.
“It’s gorgeous, it’s beautiful,” Raanta said. “I don’t know if I should put it on my ring [finger] because it’s so heavy. I don’t know if I can carry it. It’s unbelievable.”
Lost in translation
Hawks Coach Joel Quenneville was asked if he uses Artem Anisimov or Viktor Tikhonov to communicate with Artemi Panarin, who knows very little English.
“Either one,” Quenneville said. “Whoever’s closer.”
Jonathan Toews said the Hawks are trying to do their part, too.
“We know he’s got a little ways to go as far as learning English, but we’re trying our best to maybe learn a few Russian words to show that that effort is somewhat mutual,” Toews said.
“He’s a happy kid, he’s always smiling, you can tell he’s having fun. He wants to be a part of the chatter in the room even though he doesn’t understand what’s going on most of the time.”
Rockford shuffle
Ville Pokka’s recall on Tuesday was merely a salary-cap procedure, designed to give the Hawks as much cap space as possible by putting Michal Rozsival on long-term injured reserve. Quenneville said Viktor Svedberg likely will be recalled soon.
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