Veteran goaltender will hit the open market after career best season.

Veteran goalie hits the open market.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 4 years ago
Veteran goaltender will hit the open market after career best season.
Jonathan Huff/CSM/Zuma

It was probably a relatively strange but extremely exciting year for veteran goaltender Curtis McElhinney. McElhinney began the 2018 - 2019 National Hockey League regular season as a member of the Carolina Hurricanes but just a few weeks prior to that he had been fighting for a job as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs roster. The Leafs of course would eventually waive him in order to make room on their roster and the Hurricanes were quick to pick him up off waivers and give him a new home.

The Hurricanes of course had no idea at the time just how much they would come to rely upon McElhinney during the season and the Maple Leafs likely had no idea how much they could have used a solid backup behind Frederik Andersen at different points during the season. All in all McElhinney would go on to have arguably the best season of his professional career, this in spite of already being 36 years old and presumably in the twilight of his career as a result. Over a 33 games stretch he recorded a 2.58 goals against average and a .912 save percentage, and although those are not outstanding numbers you have to remember that this is a career backup goaltender we are talking about.

On Saturday Carolina Hurricanes insider Michael Smith revealed that McElhinney would not be back with the team next year, this in spite of the fact that it seems that goaltender Scott Darling is done as a Carolina Hurricane. This means that the veteran backup will hit the open market this summer, and considering his strong performance for Carolina it seems like that he will have plenty of suitors.

On Saturday TSN National Hockey League insider Pierre LeBrun appeared to confirm that fact when he revealed that there are currently 3 NHL organization who have expressed interest in bringing in McElhinney. Although LeBrun was not able to provide the indemnity of all 3 teams he did indicate that the Montreal Canadiens appear to be one of those 3 teams. Additionally he added that the aforementioned Maple Leafs, McElhinney's former team, do not appear to be in the mix in spite of reports that the team wants to improve at the backup position to give Frederik Andersen some relief. 

It will be very interesting to see how much McElhinney will command on his next deal.

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