Trade Alert: Canucks acquire goaltender from Rangers

According to a report from AHL hockey insider Tony Androckitis, the Vancouver Canucks have acquired minor league goaltender Marek Mazanec from the New York Rangers.

Sportsnet’s John Shannon has confirmed the deal, adding that the Canucks have sent a 7th round pick in exchange for Mazanec.

The 27 year old Mazanec effectively lost his backup role with the Rangers to rookie Alexandar Georgiev and, as a result, has spent the entire season with the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack. In 20 games with the Wolf Pack, Mazanec Chas a 3.01 goals against average and .903 save percentage. He’s played just 31 career NHL games, all with the Nashville Predators, over a four year span.

UPDATE: The Rangers have now officially confirmed the deal.

In case you missed it, the Canucks thrust 19 year old emergency OHL call up Mikey DiPietro into action last night against the San Jose Sharks and… well let’s just say it’s a game that DiPietro will never forget.

Just a minute into the game DiPietro faced his first NHL shot and… it found the back of the net.

The kid can hardly be blamed on this one though… I mean, there were literally three Canucks players in the slot yet SOMEHOW the pass gets through… even more incredibly, SOMEHOW Timo Meier is left untouched in the slot. Oof.

Bad news: It gets worse, Canucks fans. Check out the Sharks’ second goal of the evening… on just Dipietro’s third shot:

Yikes… Ben Hutton better buy DiPietro a beer for that one.

It wasn’t all bad though, despite Dipietro getting lit up for seven goals on the evening. He did manage to settle in and find a groove, making some stellar saves in the second and third period, like this beautiful save on Sharks forward Evander Kane:

For what it’s worth, the always positive DiPietro isn’t letting last night’s debut get him down. He knows he still has a lot of work to do and is looking forward to putting in the work.