As first reported by Henrik Sjoberg of the Swedish news outlet Expressen, the Nashville Predators have brought goaltender Anders Lindback back into the fold.
It’s a one-year, two-way deal at $650,000 at the NHL level and $100,000 at the AHL level.
Lindback was stellar in his time with Nashville going 16-13-2 with a .914 save percentage over two season, his first two in the National Hockey League. He played so well, in fact, that he believed he should be able to contend for a starting job somewhere and he knew he couldn’t do that behind Pekka Rinne who, at the time, had just signed a seven-year contract extension. Instead of re-signing the restricted free agent, General Manager David Poile then traded Lindback to the Tampa Bay Lightning for goaltender Sebastian Caron (never signed) and picks which eventually became Colton Sissons, Pontas Aberg and the recently-released Jonathan-Ismael Diaby.
The lengthy Swede was never able to get a foundation once leaving Music City, however. After struggling with the Lightning for two seasons, he suited up for three different teams (the Dallas Stars, Buffalo Sabres and Arizona Coyotes) in as many years before returning home to play for Rogle BK of the Swedish Hockey League this past year. According to Sjoberg, Lindback was a “big reason” Rogle was not relegated to HockeyAllsvenskan.
“[Marek] Mazanec is probably not going to come back next year,” Poile said late Friday night. “We’ve had some discussions that we’d probably like to start over with our goaltending depth. Which means letting Mazanec go and not re-signing [Jonas] Gunnarsson we really want to get three new goalies. Pekka [Rinne] and [Juuse] Saros will be our goalies here but, as far as Milwaukee and having a fifth goalie in the East Coast League, we need to find three goalies and we’ll start as soon as tomorrow on that subject.”
Which basically means Lindback, who was drafted by the Predators in the seventh round of the 2008 Draft, is slated to play with Nashville’s AHL affiliate, the Milwaukee Admirals, and be one heck of an insurance policy were there to be an injury to either Rinne or Saros.
Another goaltender who will be in Milwaukee is Matt O’Connor. The Preds have signed the former Boston University Terrier to a one-year, two-way deal worth $650,000 at the NHL level and $75,000 at the AHL level.
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PHOTO CREDIT: Sarah Fuqua
