Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR 550) – Buffalo Sabres goalie Craig Anderson will likely get the opportunity to win his 300th career NHL game on Monday night against the Florida Panthers.
This season is Anderson’s first in Buffalo, but he remembers his first career win in the NHL very well, just 18 years ago.
“It was 7-0 in Columbus against Freddie Brathwaite, and I kept the stick. It’s all I really remember about it,” Anderson recalled.
Over his long career, Anderson won 202 games with the Ottawa Senators, 51 games with the Colorado Avalanche, 24 games with Florida, 12 with the Chicago Blackhawks, eight with the Sabres and two with the Washington Capitals.
Anderson never gets too high or too low, and he's trying to take the same approach when looking ahead to potentially winning his 300th game.
“It’s just one of those nice, even numbers," he said. "In March of 2020 when everything shut down, I felt kind of cheated a little bit, and it just felt like I had more to give. It was a personal goal to set.”
In the 2001-02 season, Anderson began his pro career playing in the American Hockey League with the Norfolk Admirals. He logged 28 games that season and 32 the next year before getting called up to the Blackhawks to play six games. Chicago wasn’t a good team back then, and Anderson's career got off to a horrible start.
“0-11-4 is what I remember. Tough start," Anderson said. "I was a young guy getting yo-yoed up and down. You get a couple of chances here-and-there to play, so you had to work for everything you got there. When you look back, you kind of laugh at it, but when you were in it, I don’t think I was old enough or mature enough to realize how much of a deficit I started with."
In the season he came up with the Blackhawks, Anderson was teammates with former Sabres defenseman Phil Housley and goalie Jocelyn Thibault. Meanwhile, the Sabres had guys like Mika Noronen, Rob Ray and Miro Satan.
Since then, there have been a lot of changes in the game of hockey.
“Speed and youth. There’s a lot more youth mistakes," Anderson said. "Now with young speed, everything is go, go, go, go, and the old slow guy got pushed out of the league.
“The digital age has embraced creativity. Before the digital age, your creativity is what you made of it.”
That wasn’t all. As a goalie, there was one thing that changed everything.
“It’s probably sticks. It went from all wood to two-piece to full composite," Anderson explained. "When we first broke in, you had to worry about maybe three guys on each team, because the bottom half guys with wooden sticks just weren’t a threat. Now, everybody’s a threat.”
There’s a reason Anderson has been able to last this long. He said you have to stay young.
“When you expect to win and things don’t go the right way, you start getting pissed off and you forget that you are out here having a good time, playing a kids game," Anderson said. "As soon as you can flip that switch that when you have fun playing the game, you usually win more games and you play better.”
Anderson has won his last two games and is 4-5-0 since coming off injury.
***Photo: Micheline Michaelina (@MiMiV4682)
