{"id":99950,"date":"2021-02-03T15:52:07","date_gmt":"2021-02-03T20:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=99950"},"modified":"2021-02-03T16:19:14","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T21:19:14","slug":"carolina-hurricanes-petr-mrazek-undergoes-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/02\/03\/carolina-hurricanes-petr-mrazek-undergoes-surgery\/","title":{"rendered":"Carolina Hurricanes Petr Mrazek Undergoes Surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/hurricanes\/\" target=\"_self\">Carolina Hurricanes<\/a> have announced that goaltender <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/mrazepe01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Petr Mrazek<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0has undergone thumb surgery. His timetable for return is unknown at this time. The Hurricanes are doing well so far in 2020-21, but this absence could be significant for the team. The team announced the procedure Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Petr Mrazek has undergone surgery on his right thumb<\/p>\n<p>Details \u00bb <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/6z4qoqyNUJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/6z4qoqyNUJ<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/HELAXwocrO\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/HELAXwocrO<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Canes\/status\/1357058142920716290?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 3, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Hurricanes Petr Mrazek Undergoes Surgery<\/h2>\n<p>Mrazek has looked unbeatable to this point in the year. The 28-year-old had a .955 save percentage and .99 goals-against-average in four games. Both figures were the best in the NHL. It&#8217;s hard to imagine Mrazek maintaining that pace, but it was a huge factor in Carolina leading its division through the season&#8217;s first several weeks.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/redwings\/\" target=\"_self\">Detroit Red Wings<\/a> originally drafted Mrazek in the fifth round of the 2010 Draft. He debuted for them in 2012-13, but he wasn&#8217;t a regular contributor until 2014-15 when he appeared in 29 games with a .918 save percentage and 2.38 goals-against-average. The Red Wings sent him to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/flyers\/\" target=\"_self\">Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> in 2018 in exchange for two third-round picks. Mrazek then signed with Carolina prior to the 2018-19 season. Overall, the Czech netminder has appeared in 267 regular-season games with a .911 save percentage and 2.60 goals-against-average.<\/p>\n<h3>How Carolina Replaces Mrazek<\/h3>\n<p>Carolina had split its first seven games between Mrazek and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/reimeja01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">James Reimer<\/a><\/strong>, so Reimer will obviously get the bulk of starts until Mrazek is healthy again. &#8216;Optimus Reim&#8217; has been a steady presence since joining the &#8216;Canes with a .914 save percentage and 2.59 goals-against. Those are the strongest numbers of Reimer&#8217;s 11-year career.<\/p>\n<p>The Hurricanes will use <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/n\/nedelal01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alex Nedeljkovic<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0as the primary backup. The 22-year-old former second-round selection has appeared in just six NHL contests across parts of three seasons. He has a .907 save percentage and 2.55 goals-against average. It&#8217;s hard to know how often Carolina will use him as he hasn&#8217;t played in a game without the AHL in action. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/bibeaan01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Antoine Bibeau<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0is another option if Nedeljkovic struggles. The good thing is that the team is deep enough in front of their net to weather an absence such as Mrazek for a few weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"29_xvRmwTmNs262AjSvP7w\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1299193492\" 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:'29_xvRmwTmNs262AjSvP7w',sig:'L07fn4uXPON2yoKj1kQR62x3Gs4vpB6Awz1J4Ev8WsI=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1299193492',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 Carolina Hurricanes have announced that goaltender Petr Mrazek\u00a0has undergone thumb surgery. His timetable for return is unknown at this time. The Hurricanes are doing well so far in 2020-21, but this absence could be significant for the team. The team announced the procedure Wednesday afternoon. Petr Mrazek has undergone surgery on his right thumb [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3127,"featured_media":99956,"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":[10,4547,34,4548],"tags":[4365,136,5738,322,955,619,6327],"class_list":["post-99950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hurricanes","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-alex-nedeljkovic","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-hockey-news","tag-james-reimer","tag-nhl-news","tag-petr-mrazek","tag-petr-mrazek-surgery"],"modified_by":"Brandon Higley-Blair, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99950","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\/3127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}