Arizona Coyotes goalie Antti Raanta has undergone surgery for his mystery ailment and will most likely miss the remainder of the season.
For the Coyotes this is very bad news. Antti Raanta isn't just the Coyotes starting goalie, he's their best and most important player.
Raanta has put up stats that would suggest that the Coyotes found themselves an elite goalie back when they heisted him from the unsuspecting New York Rangers.
Unfortunately, he missed half of last year and will likely play even less than half of this year.
The Coyotes were a team I expected to make the playoffs this season - or, since it's a bit of a crap shoot for all but a few exceptional rosters, at least be in contention for most of the year.
But that is done.
Unless they magically get near-elite numbers from Adin Hill or Darcey Keumper, and that is probably not going to happen, they are done!
It sucks because it will just add to the narrative that Chayka is young and doesn't know what he's doing, but in fact just the opposite is true.
The Coyotes retooled their team and built it to compete now, reasoning that they could really use a playoff birth to help the team, and that they might get lucky along the way with a lottery pick.
The lottery part didn't work out, but the Coyotes - who do have lots of young talent - are a surprisingly veteran laden team that was banking on at least coming close to a playoff birth.
With Jason Demers, Christian Dvorak, Antti Raanta, Vinnie Hinostroza and Michael Grabner all on the IR, most for a while, it's not looking too good.
There are those who say injuries are no excuse, and who knows - making the Playoffs might still happen - but the fact is in the NHL there is so much parity that injuries are a major factor in who makes the playoffs.
Jacob Chychrun missed the first 20 games.
Christian Dvorak has not played this year.
They lost a top pairing defenseman for upwards of 60 games.
And now their starting goalies is done.
Also their back-up goalie is injured.
You can blame the water, bad luck or alligators. But you can't really blame the coach or GM for this kind of thing.
One thing the Coyotes should do is tell their fans what is wrong with their star goalie. None of this lower-body crap. They owe us that much.
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