3 takeaways as Canes suffer first overtime defeat in San Jose

Carolina lost the goaltending battle

There’s a lot of people you can blame this loss on, but Carolina’s netminder in this one is certainly not to blame. Losing 2-1 in OT and only managing 23 shots is just proof that a goalie kept you in a game where your offense couldn’t generate a thing. It was the Carolina netminder that kept this slacking offense in the game. Carolina was getting frustrated by San Jose, and Antti Raanta stopped the breaks at the other end.

Would you want an NHL goaltender to stop the first shot? Sure, fair enough. It goes through Raanta’s body between his arm and his logo. You would expect an NHL goaltender to stop that shot nine times out of ten. Yes, you want him to stop it, but he has more than earned a few mistakes during his time as a Hurricane due to his outstanding play as the backup.

This was the first loss Raanta had suffered as a Carolina Hurricanes netminder. Raanta has shown some outstanding skills during his time on the team. We know that he can be a very good NHL goaltender and that goalies make mistakes sometimes. Raanta has earned some room to make some mistakes. This is one of these mistakes, and these things happen.

However, Raanta game into this game and gave the starter a much-deserved rest as the team continue to run up and down the west coast on this extended road trip along the coast. It’s a disappointing result for the Carolina Hurricanes, but things like this happen and the team in front of him and that just wasn’t good enough. It would have required a shutout from their goalie to win this game, and that’s unacceptable to ask.