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Kings Sign David Rittich, Steven Santini

July 1, 2023 at 4:35 pm CDT | by Brennan McClain 6 Comments

Aside from the free agent deals for both Andreas Englund and Mikhail Maltsev, the team has also announced separate signings of goaltender David Rittich, and defenseman Steven Santini. Both players received one-year deals, while Rittich will make $875K at the NHL level, and Santini will receive $800K.

It was previously reported that the Kings were targeting a goalie to sign to a relatively cheap contract to pair with incumbent Pheonix Copley to complete their goalie tandem. They’ve found exactly that in Rittich, 30. Rittich spent last season as Connor Hellebuyck’s backup with the Winnipeg Jets, posting a .901 save percentage in 21 games.

He’s been a backup goaltender for the past three seasons, but before that point he received a greater workload as a member of the Calgary Flames.

Before the Flames’ signing of Jacob Markstrom, Rittich received 40+ games played from the Flames and performed decently well, scoring a .911 save percentage in 2018-19 and a .907 in 2019-20.

Copley managed to post a 26-6-3 record with a .903 save percentage last season, so if Rittich can manage to post similar numbers next season the Kings should be in decent shape.

They’ve got quite a bit of talent all throughout their roster and seem to be looking to emulate the Golden Knights from early in these past playoffs, wherein a cheap netminder good enough to give his team a chance to win consistently is propelled to victories by a talent-rich roster.

Conventional wisdom has stated that teams need strong, reliable goaltenders to be able to have playoff success, but the Golden Knights bucked that trend by winning a Stanley Cup behind a netminder with a career-high of 27 NHL games played in a single season. Now, the Kings look to be attempting to do a similar thing.

As for Santini, he’s a 28-year-old six-foot-two blueliner with 123 games of NHL experience under his belt. He’s played a handful of NHL games in the last few seasons but has largely been an AHL defender in that time frame. He’ll likely get a shot in training camp to make the NHL roster but will be overwhelmingly likely to play most of his games with the AHL’s Ontario Reign.

The Kings faced quite a few injury issues last season, so in signing Santini, Los Angeles has secured some experienced depth in case the injury bug bites once again.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

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Los Angeles Kings David Rittich| Steven Santini

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View Comments (6)

Comments

  1. southpawxxv

    2 years ago

    We got the wrong Jets goalie!!!

    1
    Reply
  2. kingsfan1968

    2 years ago

    Got some decent depth!

    Reply
  3. Swiney50

    2 years ago

    Kings are now on their way to a 3rd Championship with the three most underwhelming netminders in NHL history!

    LFG!!

    #GoKings

    Reply
  4. McGahee

    2 years ago

    Rob Blake building a Megazord Goalie out of spare backup parts is a fun side story this offseason.

    1
    Reply
  5. DarkSide830

    2 years ago

    LAK really said “Yeah, Talbot/Rittich” is the tandem that will get us over the hump.

    1
    Reply
  6. kingsfan1968

    2 years ago

    Based on the Cap space, this depth will get us to the trade deadline and Copley gets to prove if he has what it takes!

    Reply

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