Looks as though Ottawa wants to keep the Craig Anderson-Robin Lehner goalie tandem together for a while.
Having already locked up Lehner to a three-year extension, assistant GM Pierre Dorion will now get to work on an extension for Anderson, the Ottawa Sun reports:
Speaking in a conference call after signing Lehner to a deal that will pay him an average of $2.275 million per-season, assistant GM Pierre Dorion confirmed he’ll now work on Anderson.
Though GM Bryan Murray is battling cancer he’s running the show and instructed Dorion to hold talks with Anderson’s Chicago-based agent Justin Duberman to see what he’s thinking.
“I did talk to (Duberman) a few weeks back and said we’d like to get Robin Lehner done first and then we could talk about an extension,” said Dorion.
Anderson, 33, is coming off a disappointing year. Injuries and ineffective play limited him to just 53 appearances, in which he went 25-16-8 with a 3.00 GAA and .911 save percentage. The disappointment was magnified given his brilliance during the lockout-shortened ’13 campaign -- Anderson went 12-9-2 with a .941 save percentage and 1.69 GAA, finishing fourth in Vezina and 12th in Hart voting. He was also stellar in that spring’s opening-round playoff series against Montreal, allowing just nine goals on 180 shots -- good for a .950 save percentage -- in the five-game victory.
As for money on Anderson’s new deal, it’ll be interesting to see what Ottawa’s willing to spend. Lehner will pull down $1.5 million next season, $2.025 million in 2015-16 and $3.15 million in 2016-17; Anderson, meanwhile, has one year remaining at $3.18M.
