While the Bruins had expressed an interest in keeping him, it doesn’t appear that goaltender Anton Khudobin will be sticking around in Boston. GM Don Sweeney told reporters, including Fluto Shinzawa of The Athletic (Twitter link), that he’s not optimistic about their chances of keeping the 32-year-old around.
Khudobin is coming off one of the best seasons of his career where he posted a 2.56 GAA with a .913 SV% in 31 appearances for the Bruins. The fact he played as well as he did also allowed the team to keep Tuukka Rask fresher and Boston’s starter responded with his best save percentage in three years.
Internally, the Bruins have Zane McIntyre at AHL Providence but he’s likely not ready to step in and make 20-25 starts at the NHL level. As a result, they will likely be active in the free agent goalie market once it opens up on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Khudobin will enter a goaltending market that appears to feature more supply than demand. However, considering he has established himself as someone that can play more than a typical workload for a backup, he should still garner some interest on the open market. He’s coming off a $1.2MM contract and in our Top 50 Free Agent rankings (where he sits 26th), we project a small raise to a $1.75MM AAV for the next two years.
So if $1.75MM AAV is the prediction, then why would the Bruins just give him that little bump in raise??
because that prediction was way off. he’s likely asking for between 2.5 and 3
Stud backup, he’ll be missed in Boston! There were times last season I preferred Anton start over Tukka
I’m guessing term is the issue. Khudobin is probably asking for 3 years. The Bruins never give their backup more than 2 years
I heard he’s Dallas’s top choice for their backup