Caniacs, last night we bore witness to Antti Raanta’s proving himself utterly crazy. There were reports of this phenomenon before, but in the 3rd period with the Carolina Hurricanes tied at 2, he proved it beyond what is considered reasonable doubt.
Exhibit A
Antti Raanta is a wild man pic.twitter.com/B9PT1rtZPo
— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) November 8, 2023
This all took place with around the 9:55 mark in the 3rd period.
Casey Mittelstadt breaks away with absolutely NO ONE within 10 miles of him, having picked up the puck from a Hurricanes defensemen that shall remain nameless.
Like the crazy man that he is, with what I am sure was Pyotr Kochetkov shouting on encouragement like a Russian imp on his shoulder, Antti Raanta skates out to the lower face off circle to poke check Mittelstadt’s drive.
If that wasn’t enough, Raanta then makes the diving stick save on Jordan Greenway’s shot almost completely dead center of the face-off circle.
But this high risk, high payoff move was the endcap of Raanta’s crazy good night against the Sabre’s and while spectacular, these were perhaps not even Raanta’s best of saves for the night.
Raanta had a very good saves in the first against Ryan Jordan, and Conner Clifton. JJ Peterka got robbed by Father Finn in the second period. Even the shot that would lead to the Hurricanes reversing the field in overtime from Alex Tuch was a good block though Raanta barely got a shoulder to it. In fact he got just enough fabric on it to divert the shot up and to the right.
He stood on his head when he needed to, albeit in the goalie’s crease. But, what we will all remember was the poke check in the 3rd that would likely have been the nail in the coffin had either Mittelstadt or Greenway’s shots gone in. It sure was a crazy sequence and one I was (after the fact) glad to have seen in person.