The Canadian | Four years later, here comes Hammond again

1400 days. 200 weeks. 45 months and 29 days. 3 years, 9 months and 29 days.

Guillaume Lefrancois
The Press

We could go on like this for a long time, but we understand the idea. It’s been a long time since Andrew Hammond has played in the National League. On Sunday, the newly acquired Canadiens goaltender will start the game against the Islanders in New York, exactly 1,400 days since his last game in the big league.

It happened on April 22, 2018, in Game 6 of the first-round series between Nashville and Colorado. Hammond then wore the colors of the Avalanche, which had lost the flag 5-0 against the Predators.

When Hammond spoke to the media after Saturday’s practice, his presence in goal had not yet been confirmed. But since the Habs will be playing two games in two days, Sunday in Long Island and Monday in Montreal, it was only natural that their turn would come.

“I’m so excited,” Hammond said by videoconference, before leaving for the long island.

A season without playing

Hammond was one of the great stories of the 2014-2015 season. An undrafted goaltender from Bowling Green University who arrives at the beleaguered Ottawa Senators and leads them to the playoffs with a “Drydenesque” record of 20-1-2.

Except that the career of the “Hamburglar” has not taken off. He played 24 games in the NHL the following season, then only 6 in 2016-2017. In the fall of 2017, he moved to the Avalanche in the three-team trade that landed Matt Duchene with the Senators, but only played one game in the season at Colorado, and three in the playoffs.

This means that during the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 seasons, he only totaled 10 games in the NHL and 24 in the American League.

It was under these circumstances that he joined the Wild organization in the summer of 2018, as a free agent.

“He had just spent two seasons where he had hardly played. He was eager to be part of a team and to play games, ”recalled Frédéric Chabot, Wild goalkeeper coach, on the phone.

At the time, Chabot supervised both the Wild’s NHL and American League goaltenders in Iowa. It was in this state that Hammond spent the season, with rookie Kaapo Kahkonen as his assistant.

“He did a great job of leadership with Kahkonen, he supported him and helped him develop,” adds Chabot. He managed his emotions well, so he was a good example for the players, not just the goalkeepers. »

After a season in Rochester, Hammond returned to the Wild organization, a month from the start of the shortened 2020-21 season. His role: to train with the reserve squad, as the organization’s third goalkeeper, and be ready to come in if Kahkonen and Cam Talbot are injured. Except that they were never absent, and so Hammond spent the entire season in said reserve squad, training with the supernumeraries. This is why there is no mention of the 2020-2021 season on his HockeyDB file: he has not played.

“It was a good insurance policy,” says Chabot. He trained hard, I can’t imagine how difficult it was not to play. You play for it. Weeks were fine, he was working well, he was ‘sharp’. But some days, it’s normal that you’re less tempted, the energy isn’t the same. »

“Last week” was when Kent Hughes called his friend Bill Guerin, Wild GM, to ask for help in net. Hammond had been playing in the American League so far, and the trade that made him move to the Canadiens meant his return to the NHL, at least until Jake Allen returned to health.

“He was happy to be back in Iowa this season. He wants to play games. Money is all well and good, but you want to play, you want to have the impression of participating in the well-being of the team,” described Chabot.

Starting tomorrow, Hammond will have all that, but at the NHL level. At 34, it’s an unexpected outcome, even if it took an unusual set of circumstances for the Habs to get there. Many goalkeepers of that age could have tried their luck in Europe, but Hammond hung on.

“You know what, it’s the best league in the world and playing in the American League gives you the best chance to come back,” Hammond said. In recent years, that hasn’t happened. Corn [jouer en Europe] never crossed my mind. I still believe that I can play in this league and this confidence allows me to continue to believe in it. I’ve never had anything easy in my career, it took me longer than others, but it worked like that for me. »

Chiarot close to a comeback, Schueneman in protocol

The news is good for Ben Chiarot, who trained with the group on Saturday. He missed the final week of action with a lower body injury. Martin St-Louis said he had “chances” to play on Sunday. It remains to be seen if the team will run the risk of playing him in the next games, since Kent Hughes has made no secret that he is looking to trade the big defender. That said, St. Louis may well have no other choice, since the Habs left for New York with only six defenders, calculating Chiarot. It is that Corey Schueneman was registered within the protocol of the COVID-19 and did not accompany the team. The setback comes at a bad time for Schueneman, who was earning the trust of St. Louis based on the 20 minutes of average playing time he’s had in two games since his recall.