With Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Frederik Andersen out three to four weeks with an upper body injury following a collision with a teammate in an Olympic qualifier for Denmark, Team Europe had to replace him on their World Cup roster.
That’s why Philipp Grubauer of Germany was selected as his replacement.
The 24-year-old goaltender is one of nine Washington Capitals players selected to participate in the tournament. Only the Tampa Bay Lightning have more players featured in the tournament (12).
Grubauer, who played in a single-season high 22 games last season and recorded a .918 save percentage, will likely slot in behind Team Europe goaltenders Thomas Greiss (Germany, New York Islanders) and Jaroslav Halak (Slovakia, New York Islanders).
Grubauer has experience with Team Germany at the international level. Grubauer backstopped Germany at the 2014 World Championship, the World Junior Championships in 2009 and 2011 and the 2008 World U-18 Championship. Grubauer also played in three games for Germany for the Olympic qualifiers, recording a 0.67 goals against percentage and a .970 save percentage in three games.
Grubauer joins goaltender Braden Holtby, who will play for Canada, as a Capitals’ representative at the World Cup. The Capitals are one of just four teams with two goaltenders participating in the tournament (Halak and Greiss, Connor Hellebuyck and Ondrej Pavelec of the Winnipeg Jets and Ben Bishop and Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning).
• Tommy Chalk can be reached at tchalk@washingtontimes.com.
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