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Minnesota Wild: Backup Goaltender Options – Part Two

By Luke Ryan

ST. PAUL, MN - MARCH 3: Erik Karlsson #65 helps his Ottawa Senators teammate Andrew Hammond #30 cover the puck while Thomas Vanek #26 of the Minnesota Wild attempts to score during the game on March 3, 2015 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. (Photo by Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images)
ST. PAUL, MN - MARCH 3: Erik Karlsson #65 helps his Ottawa Senators teammate Andrew Hammond #30 cover the puck while Thomas Vanek #26 of the Minnesota Wild attempts to score during the game on March 3, 2015 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. (Photo by Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images) /
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The Minnesota Wild options for a backup goaltender this season are among the better ones in the National Hockey League.

Andrew Hammond is the second of Minnesota Wild’s options for the role that has a decent chunk of NHL experience behind them.

Now, granted the former Ottawa Senators netminder, also known as ‘The Hamburgular’ is probably best known for an amazing run of games in the second half of the 2014-15 season. His performances that year saw him take control of the net and push the team into that years’ Stanley Cup playoffs.

However, since then he has fallen by the wayside somewhat. The following season, he saw a respectable 24 games with the Senators, before ending up with their AHL affiliate in Belleville last year.

The move to the Minnesota Wild should hopefully be a breath of fresh air for the 30-year old. He’ll be hoping to turn around a pretty dismal .900 AHL save percentage and will very likely start the year as the number one with the Iowa Wild.

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Last season after all, he played on a team that was only two spots off the bottom of the American Hockey League; not great for pumping anyone’s statistics!

That said, a strong performance at training camp and the Minnesota Wild could well be left with some tough decisions between Alex Stalock and Hammond.

What Hammond brings for the Minnesota Wild is not much more than some history as an elite NHL golatender, for all of 20-ish games, in one season. All with a team that was quite defensively stable and often stayed back and defended leads by boxing their opponent out very well.

What this did in terms of the goalie’s job was limit the high danger shot attempts and thus help inflate Hammond’s numbers to almost Vezina levels for that time-frame (per Natural Stat Trick).

Realistically, I can’t see the Minnesota Wild looking past Stalock as Devan Dubnyk‘s understudy, but having Hammond there in the background isn’t a bad thing – it gives them an option if either of the aforementioned go down with injuries.

His priority has to be securing the number one spot with Iowa and taking it from there. An impressive year in the AHL gives him a lot more options and likewise, the Minnesota Wild a lot more options.

light. Related Story. Backup Goaltender Options - Part One

I’m seeing Hammond as the third choice this year, but again – he could surprise us all and sneak in ahead of Stalock. We’ll look at the young upstarts that would have to stand on their heads at camp to be backup in Part Three.

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