Goaltender Kevin Reiter has been facing shots from some of the world’s best players for the past month. With his confidence soaring, it’s no wonder he can’t wait for the season to begin.
And Reiter will spend it with the Komets, who re-signed him Tuesday after two years away.
“The Komets, I’ve played a lot of places, it’s my seventh year, and I’ve never been treated better anywhere else,” Reiter said.
“I was looking at who they were signing and there were so many guys from that ’07-08 team, and I thought it would be great.”
Reiter, 29, has been working out with the Pittsburgh Penguins lately, which has afforded him the opportunity to skate with Sidney Crosby and Pascal Dupuis.
“You don’t realize how good these guys are until you’re on the ice, and then you’ve got a whole new respect,” Reiter said. “It’s very quick. They’re good guys, and they treat you like anybody else.”
Reiter spent the past two seasons playing in England for Basingstoke, Sheffield and Nottingham, though he missed most of last season with an abdominal tear.
After undergoing surgery in January and rehabilitating the injury, he received a call from Komets general manager David Franke.
About the same time, Boucher told the Komets he’d like them to look into signing Reiter, who was 32-10-4 with a 2.34 goals-against average and a .910 save percentage in 2007-08.
“I think he’s the right guy because we had looked at a lot of different goalies and (decided) Kevin played well here and did well for us in ’07-08. He knows the coach (Al Sims), a lot of the players and the city, and there’s a real comfort level for him,” Franke said.
The Komets helped arrange a tryout for Reiter with Worcester of the higher-level American Hockey League.
If he doesn’t make the squad, he’ll report to Fort Wayne and split playing time with Boucher, who has been in net for all of the Komets’ three straight championships.
“We’re not expecting (Reiter) to come in and play 50 games for us,” Franke said.
“I’m sure there will be kind of a rotation like before, and if one of them goes hot, we’ll go with that guy. But as you know, there always seems to be an injury or two. We feel we have two legitimate goalies who can step in.”
This will be the Komets’ first season in the Central Hockey League, where Reiter played for Laredo in 2006-07.
“Bouch and I have had (this) in common: We feed off each other and have that friendship where we can bounce ideas off each other and we both really care about what we do and try to get better each day,” Reiter said.
Note: Steven Oleksy won’t attend training camp, Franke said, because he thought that having six defensemen returning would hinder his chances of making the team. He will play in the ECHL.
