Desperate for goalie help, Hurricanes sign top prospect in middle of the NCAA season
Updated 6:16 p.m. with the Hurricanes confirming the signing. Updated 6:35 p.m. with comments from general manager Don Waddell.
Jack LaFontaine was in net for the University of Minnesota in a 6-3 win at Michigan State on Saturday night. A day later, the 2016 third-round draft pick turned pro and signed with the Carolina Hurricanes.
Faced with a wave of goalie injuries throughout the system, with Antti Raanta a late scratch Saturday with an upper-body injury and AHL goalies Eetu Makeniemi and Beck Warm both injured, the Hurricanes settled Sunday on an unusual solution: the midseason signing of the starting goalie of a top-10 NCAA team in the middle of the college season.
An Ontario native, he’ll practice with the Hurricanes while he awaits a work visa, but Hurricanes general manager Don Waddell didn’t rule out LaFontaine making his NHL debut in short order, especially if Raanta remains out.
“We’ll play it by ear and see how things are here with the goalie situation,” Waddell told The News & Observer. “We definitely want to give him a chance. He’ll be a restricted free agent at the end of the year so we’ve got to find out what we’ve got here. The good thing is, we’re high on him.”
LaFontaine, 24, started his career at Michigan before transferring to Minnesota, playing a year of junior hockey between. He won the Mike Richter Award last season as the top goalie in college hockey and was a Hobey Baker finalist as the Gophers won the Big Ten championship before losing in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
The Hurricanes attempted to sign him over the summer, but LaFontaine decided to return to Minnesota for a fifth year of eligibility, and the Ontario native has started all 20 games for the No. 8 Gophers, going 12-8 with a 2.69 goals-against average and .900 save percentage. Last season, he was 22-7 with a 1.79 GAA and .934 save percentage.
LaFontaine signed a one-year deal that will pay him $750,000 at the NHL level and $70,000 in the AHL, with an $88,500 signing bonus. With the Hurricanes over the salary cap, the deal was structured to keep his average salary under $1 million, making him eligible to be an emergency COVID recall.
Meanwhile, the Hurricanes have been scrambling for bodies in net in both the NHL and AHL. Alex Lyon, called up from the Hurricanes’ COVID taxi squad Saturday, stopped 33 shots in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Florida Panthers. Frederik Andersen, who saw heavy action Friday, would presumably be back in net Tuesday at the Philadelphia Flyers. Raanta’s availabilty, however, remains in doubt.
“We’ve got some concerns with his injury,” Waddell said. “There’s no timetable. He could be back this week, he could be back next week, he could be out for longer. And Lyon did a good job for us. But this is a unique year with COVID. If we ever lost Raanta or Andersen long term, we could really be short-handed. This kind of fell in our lap at the right time.”
Waddell said the Hurricanes would keep three goalies with the NHL team the rest of the way as a precaution.
Raanta’s sudden unavailability put an even greater strain on an organization that has run out of goalies under contract. The AHL Chicago Wolves currently have six goalies on their roster, four of them on tryout contracts. Their two goalies Sunday against the Cleveland Monsters were recent call-ups from the Toledo Walleyes and Tulsa Oilers of the ECHL, with a total of one game of AHL experience between them, that coming Saturday night.
This story was originally published January 9, 2022 at 5:42 PM.
