Senators acquire Craig Anderson from Colorado for Brian Elliott
According to reports on Twitter, the Ottawa Senators have traded goaltender Brian Elliott to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for pending unrestricted free agent goaltender Craig Anderson.
(Read the Avalanche perspective on Mile High Hockey.)
Anderson turned a lot of heads with his 38-win season last year for the Avalanche, but has fallen off that pace with just 13 wins so far this year. His career numbers remain respectable, however: A GAA of 2.85 and an SP of .911, despite playing for some pretty bad Florida Panthers teams.
With Anderson, the Senators have picked up a player with about twice the experience of Brian Elliott, and one who appears more suited to the role of a number one goaltender. It remains to be seen if last year's success was reflective of his potential or a guy playing over his head, but with Anderson heading to free agency, the Senators get the opportunity of auditioning him this season in order to find out whether or not there's any sense in re-signing him after the year's done.
Obviously, the Senators organization had soured on Elliott. After a large number of opportunities to do so, Elliott was never able to convince the team that he could handle massive playing time in the NHL. He could put together very impressive winning streaks, but then would follow them up with disappointingly poor performances. He was, in summary, unpredictable, and weak goals getting past him would visibly affect the team around him.
It's unclear what the Avalanche may be expecting out of Elliott. On first glance the trade appears to be a salary dump--Elliott's only making $900k, while Anderson is making $2.1M. It could also be that they've tired of Anderson, and think Elliott (who can likely be re-signed for very little this off-season) offers them more options moving forward. Time will tell.
In the meantime, the Senators throw another goaltender into the fire to see what this one might be able to do. He won't play tonight (UPDATE: He's expected to back up Robin Lehner), but will likely get a few starts through the rest of the season.