Backup goalie Antti Raanta is living up to Rangers' expectations

A puck, a scoresheet and a photo were mounted and arranged in a stylish frame that leaned against Antti Raanta's locker in the Rangers' training center in Westchester County.

The game mementos are assembled by the team's staff for Rangers who reach a milestone -- scoring a first goal, for instance.

This particular collection was for Raanta's first shutout -- and win -- as a Ranger, when he made 22 saves in a 4-0 whitewash of San Jose at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 19.

Raanta, who appears to be getting on very well with his new teammates since arriving in a trade with the Chicago Blackhawks for Ryan Haggerty on June 27, said the keepsake will be hung on a wall in his home.

"It's something to be proud of," Raanta said with a sly grin, setting up a punch line. "And it's historic. I mean, if you look at the scoresheet, Marc Staal had the winning goal. That doesn't happen very often."

To be sure, Staal, who gets his own share of digs in, doesn't score many goals at all. And in his first two starts as a Ranger, Raanta hasn't allowed many. Just one, in a 4-1 win over Calgary on Oct. 25, also at the Garden, where fans chanted his name.

For Raanta, home has been where the saves are. He has posted a 16-0-3 record in home games in his career and is 2-0 with a 0.50 goals-against average and a .978 save percentage.

On Saturday night, however, Raanta was tabbed to sub for Henrik Lundqvist against the Coyotes at Gila River Arena as the Rangers (9-2-2) tried to extend their season-high four-game winning streak.

Raanta, who replaced Cam Talbot, has given coach Alain Vigneault the confidence to pencil him in. "We need a goaltender who can give us around 20 games and we need a goaltender who can win us some games,'' Vigneault said. "In the two that Antti has played, he's played extremely well. He's given us a chance to win; we won both. Our scouts really thought there was some potential there and [so does] Benny [goaltending coach Benoit Allaire] working with him, but the player still has to go on the ice and prove it. And there's no doubt that in the small sample size, he's been good."

In his last two seasons with the Blackhawks, the 26-year-old native of Rauma, Finland, posted a 6-9-2 mark away from home. But Raanta had fared well against the Coyotes with a 2-0-1 record, a 1.62 GAA and a .949 save percentage.

Regardless of the outcome, Vigneault and Allaire have mapped out a plan for Raanta, with an emphasis on the 14 back-to-back series remaining after the Coyotes game.

Vigneault recalled Raanta's key first-period stops against the Flames on Oct. 25. "We have put him in tough [back-to-back] situations two times when points were on the line,'' he said, "and there is no doubt that that breakaway save and rebound [on Mikael Backlund and Michael Frolik] was a turning point in the game."