Earlier this afternoon, MLive’s Ansar Khan discussed the plain old fact that the Red Wings need better back-up goaltending to succeed this upcoming season. That means that the Wings will expect James Reimer to step into Alex Nedeljkovic/Magnus Hellberg’s spot and stand out behind Ville Husso:
He is coming off his worst season statistically (12-21-8, 3.48 GAA, .890 save percentage) on the fourth-worst team in the league.
“I think the mindset is every single year you should come in with something to prove, whether you’ve had a good year or a bad year,” Reimer, who signed a one-year, $1.5 million deal on July 1, said. “There’s always that drive to be the best, that drive to be perfect. Is there more when the season didn’t go the way you liked it as opposed to having a career year? Probably. But that drive should be there no matter what.
“The stats didn’t reflect well. But it’s also one of those things where I played some really good hockey. I felt like I was a better goalie at the end of the year than the start of the year. When things don’t go your way it’s hard, but I felt like I learned a lot and grew a lot and improved my game a lot. So, I’m excited to continue to work on it, to have that drive to get after it this year and make it a great year.”
Husso arguably was the Red Wings’ most valuable player for much of the season before faltering in the final month (1-6-1, 4.32 GAA, .832 save percentage final eight starts). A nagging injury and overuse due to ineffectiveness from his backups, Alex Nedeljkovic and Magnus Hellberg, contributed.
