It’s a funny twist of fate that a very young Buffalo Sabres squad also has one of the oldest current NHL players. Craig Anderson is in fact the third-oldest NHL player under contract behind only Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau. Hulking defenseman Zdeno Chara is older than all three, but the tallest, oldest (don’t hurt me, Mr. Chara) man in the NHL is still a free agent as of now, with many reports saying he’s only interested in playing on the east coast to be nearer to his family in Boston.
(Edit: Patrick Marleau is not under contract. Anderson is the second oldest!)
At 40 years and 98 days, Craig Anderson is older than Roberto Luongo, Tim Thomas and Hap Holmes were when they retired. If you’ve never heard of Hap Holmes, you’re probably not alone as the Hall-of-Famer retired in 1928 after finishing his career with the Detroit Cougars of the NHL. He’s mostly included in this article due to this amusing bit of trivia I found on Wikipedia:
“As a player, Holmes wore a baseball cap in net to protect his head from spectators spitting tobacco or throwing other objects at it. Holmes was bald, and as described by the Windsor Star, ‘his shining bald dome presented a tempting target.’"
Hilarious.
Craig Anderson also sports a shiny noggin but the protective equipment in hockey has come a long way since the playing days of Hap Holmes so he shouldn’t have the same problem.
Anderson has been plying his trade in the NHL since 2002, when he broke in with the Chicago Blackhawks before making stops in Florida, Colorado, Ottawa and finally with Washington last season. Over his nearly 20 years in the NHL, he has compiled a .913 save percentage, with most of his best years coming in Ottawa between 2010-2015 and some good campaigns also sprinkled in with Florida between 2006-2009. The American goalie nearly helped Ottawa to go all the 2016-17 playoffs, but they would ultimately fall to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Eastern Conference Finals. Anderson started 19 games in the playoffs that year and went 11-8 with a very respectable .922 save percentage in those contests.
It’s tough to say at this point how much Anderson has left at age 40 and how much he can reasonably be expected to play. Last season with the Capitals he only played in 15 games but still managed a .915 save percentage over that short sample size. It’s probably not realistic to expect that Anderson could play anywhere close to 50 games this season, although it could happen if there are injuries elsewhere and if his body can hold up over the length of the grueling NHL season.
The Park Ridge, Illinois native joins a Sabres team that has rather quickly assembled a sizeable collection of American-born players under American-born coach Don Granto. That list includes Anderson, Kyle Okposo, Casey Mittelstadt, Tage Thompson, Anders Bjork, John Hayden, Vinnie Hinostroza and Will Butcher. Perhaps Mattias Samuelsson as well, if he makes the team. It’s not clear if this was a conscious decision by Sabres management, simply coincidence based on who was available, or whether it’s due to Granato’s connections to USA Hockey, but it’ll be interesting to see if the trend continues.
Here’s the depth chart to this point:
X – X – X
Anders Bjork – X –
Tage Thompson
Arttu Ruotsalainen -
Rasmus Asplund -
Vinnie Hinostroza
Zemgus Girgensons -
John Hayden -
Kyle Okposo
Cody Eakin
X – X
Will Butcher –
Mark Pysyk
Mattias Samuelsson -
Colin Miller
Craig Anderson
Dustin Tokarski
**********
Last we formally heard from Jack Eichel’s camp earlier this month, agents Peter Fish and Peter Donatelli were expressing their displeasure with the situation surrounding their client and the Buffalo Sabres. On Friday, a new chapter in the saga was written as Eichel will no longer be represented by the Peters and has instead hired NHL super-agent Pat Brisson to represent him.
Brisson’s clients include NHL superstars like Sidney Crosby, Patrick Kane, Anze Kopitar, Jonathan Toews and Nathan MacKinnon among others. There’s no telling why this move was made now, but it certainly is fun to speculate.
There is little doubt that Eichel has been growing impatient that he is still a member of the Sabres organization and that his preferred path would be to get his disk replacement surgery and get out as soon as he can. As the clock ticks to September, though, teams have mostly finalized their rosters and most teams do not have the cap space to accommodate the 10-million-dollar salary of the Sabres captain. Furthermore, if we accept Eichel’s contention that the replacement surgery has a 6-week rehabilitation period, then a surgery on September 1 means that the 6-week period would end in mid-October which is, perhaps not coincidentally, the start of the NHL season.
It does not appear currently that the Sabres are willing to move off their preferred approach of a spinal fusion rather than the disk replacement, and the Eichel camp under Fish and Donatelli weren’t interested in the Sabres’ option which has meant a stalemate for months.
Could this development indicate a change on either side?
It’s doubtful. The change in agents is likely just a reaction to the lack of trade movement, although it’s also doubtful that Brisson can do anything encourage trade movement without Eichel showing the NHL that he can play. Teams are unwilling to part with premium organizational assets to land Eichel without knowing what a post-spinal surgery Jack Eichel looks like and it’s hard to blame them. The Sabres aren't willing to part with Eichel for less than a haul, and it's hard to blame
them.
Perhaps Brisson will be quick to get out a statement on behalf of his new client. The better path, though, may be to avoid negotiating through the media after seeing how far that got Fish and Donatelli.
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