Oct. 08--Rangers goaltender Antti Raanta insists he holds no ill will against the Blackhawks, though he could see how fans think he might.
Raanta drew the ire of the Hawks fans this summer when he claimed that he was rooting against the Hawks in the playoffs last season after he lost the backup goaltender job to Scott Darling.
On top of that, the Hawks left Raanta, who played in 14 games last season, off the list of named they submitted to be put on the Stanley Cup.
Raanta, whom the Hawks traded to the Rangers in June, said Wednesday there are no hard feelings, and did his best to backtrack on the comments he made to a newspaper in Finland. The Hawks, meanwhile, presented Raanta with his championship ring Wednesday morning.
"I hope everybody understands what I was trying to mean with that," Raanta said. "I didn't want to say anything bad about the Hawks or the whole organization. I understand the fans can be little disappointed in me. But hopefully they understand I wasn't thinking that the whole playoff time.
"It was one hour in one day. When you're frustrated, you have a lot of things going on in your mind. Hopefully everybody understands that and hopefully after this night everybody can forget that."
Raanta said he didn't quite know how to react when he learned his name was not on the Stanley Cup. The Hawks submit the names for the NHL to put on the Cup. Both Daniel Carcillo and Joakim Nordstrom, who played infrequently during last season, made the Cup while Raanta did not.
"It's not there so it's not there," Raanta said. "I know I was part of the team, so that's good enough. What are you going to do about that?"
Svedberg coming back: On Tuesday, the Hawks recalled defenseman Ville Pokka and assigned defenseman Viktor Svedberg to Rockford. On Wednesday, coach Joel Quenneville said the plan likely was for them to swap places again.
The moves would be part of a salary-cap maneuver designed to allow the Hawks to maximize the amount of money they can go above the salary cap to help replace defenseman Michal Rozsival, who will start the season on long-term injured reserve.
By having Pokka, who makes $925,000 on a two-way contract, on the roster to start the season, the Hawks can have more room to go above the cap when they recall Svedberg, who makes $575,000 on a two-way deal, because the amount the Hawks can go above the cap is based in part on the salary of the opening-night roster.
