{"id":87020,"date":"2020-12-27T18:05:38","date_gmt":"2020-12-27T23:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=87020"},"modified":"2020-12-27T18:05:38","modified_gmt":"2020-12-27T23:05:38","slug":"craig-anderson-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2020\/12\/27\/craig-anderson-signs\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig Anderson Signs PTO With the Washington Capitals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Washington Capitals have signed free agent goalie <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/a\/andercr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Craig Anderson<\/a> <\/strong>to a professional tryout agreement. This contract carries him through the preseason. After, the Capitals can choose to walk away or sign Anderson to a contract.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Caps?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Caps<\/a> sign goaltender Craig Anderson to a professional tryout agreement. Anderson, 39, registered an 11-17-2 record with a 3.25 GAA and a .902 save percentage in 34 games with Ottawa last season.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CapitalsPR\/status\/1343251088707903489?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 27, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Craig Anderson to the Caps<\/h2>\n<p>Over his 17-year NHL career, Anderson has played for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/blackhawks\/\" target=\"_self\">Chicago Blackhawks<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/panthers\/\" target=\"_self\">Florida Panthers<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/avalanche\/\" target=\"_self\">Colorado Avalanche<\/a>, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/senators\/\" target=\"_self\">Ottawa Senators<\/a>. Over this time has posted a GAA of 2.84 and a save percentage of .913. His record is 289 wins, 318 regulation\/overtime losses, and 2 ties in 648 career games. He was originally drafted in the third round, 73rd overall of the 2001 NHL draft by the Chicago Blackhawks.<\/p>\n<p>Last season Anderson played 34 games and posted an 11-17-2 record with a 3.25 goals-against-average and a .902 save percentage.<\/p>\n<p>Anderson started his career with the team that drafted him, the Chicago Blackhawks. Over parts of three seasons as the backup to <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/khabini01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikolai Khabibulin<\/a>,<\/strong> he went 6-12-4 with a 3.32 GAA. On June 24, the Blackhawks traded Anderson to the Florida Panthers for the Panthers sixth-round draft pick in the 2008 NHL entry draft. In Florida, he served as backup to <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/v\/vokouto01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tomas Vokoun<\/a><\/strong> for three seasons. In this span, he was 24-14-7 with a 2.39 GAA and a stellar .930 save percentage.<\/p>\n<p>Following his third year in Florida, Anderson signed as a free agent with the Colorado Avalanche. He began his career in Colorado for the 2009-10 season. During that year he went 38\u201325\u20137 with a 2.64 GAA, .917 save percentage and seven shutouts. This performance had him surpassing <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/budajpe01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Peter Budaj<\/a><\/strong> as the Avalanche starter and leading the team to an unlikely playoff spot. However, in the 2010-11 season, Anderson struggled out of the gate, quickly losing his starting position back to Budaj. With the team out of playoff contention, they traded Anderson to the Colorado Avalanche for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/e\/elliobr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Brian Elliot<\/strong><\/a> on February 18, 2011.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means Going Forward<\/h3>\n<p>It was in Ottawa that Anderson finally cemented himself into the starter role for good. Over the last ten seasons, Anderson became the best goalie in Ottawa Senators history.<\/p>\n<p>While his days as a starter are behind him, Anderson offers leadership and a reliable backup who can still play more games in case of injury. With the news of Henrik Lundqvist not playing, Anderson has a legit shot to earn a backup role in Washington. However, he will have to compete for it.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"w6hY2avBR-Bk-qxXmLrY2w\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1203420649\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'w6hY2avBR-Bk-qxXmLrY2w',sig:'58H-rmRg4V4gvc3No_Z_UijJg7nofUD4-ynKHF1lSAk=',w:'594px',h:'413px',items:'1203420649',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Washington Capitals have signed free agent goalie Craig Anderson to a professional tryout agreement. This contract carries him through the preseason. After, the Capitals can choose to walk away or sign Anderson to a contract. #Caps sign goaltender Craig Anderson to a professional tryout agreement. Anderson, 39, registered an 11-17-2 record with a 3.25 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3487,"featured_media":87057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4547,34,4548,15],"tags":[768,5738,5753,38,955,5754,70,75],"class_list":["post-87020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","category-capitals","tag-craig-anderson","tag-hockey-news","tag-hockey-signing","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-news","tag-nhl-signing","tag-ottawa-senators","tag-washington-capitals"],"modified_by":"Alex Metzger, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3487"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}