I can’t remember where I read it – but I remember hearing that Huet is “sensitive” (aka French?) and having to really fight for the #1 spot may have gotten in his head a little bit and cause a slightly below average year. It seemed like Nik really thrived under the pressure but Huet didn’t like it one bit.

So it could be interesting to see how he does next year when he’ll be the for sure #1 and Niemi or Crawford is there just as a backup. Huet certainly isn’t a workhorse so I wouldn’t want to see him going too long without a break from whoever the back up is but I’d like to see how he does when he knows he’s the starter and there isn’t as much pressure within the team.

I’m glad he ended the season with such a good performance – hopefully that gets a little more confidence in him..

I’ve stated before that Huet reminds me a lot of Jeff Hackett; he will help you win, but needs some defensive and offensive reassurance to do so. He is pretty solid in his positioning, but leaves a lot of room over his glove shoulder and you can see when teams picked up on that (game four against Scum, anyone?). I don’t feel uncomfortable with him in net. He is a good, solid goalie and will keep us in the playoff hunt so long as our offense doesn’t go tits up. He’s a great goalie for a team that has some real depth in the young goaltenders; Crawfish, Niemi and Fallon all look like potential #1’s. Since he’s not a minute-machine, that leaves plenty of time in the crease for the youngsters.

I hope we get more of the Huet from game 5 than game 4, that is for reals.

that it will be Huet and Crawford/Niemi??? I certainly think so.

Then who is the backup? Crawford was the emergency in Game 4/5 which might be a key indicator. Both were called up at different points of the season though.

As far as scouting goes it seems like Crawford is closer to being a contributor and more consistent. But Niemi apparently has the higher ceiling. My opinion is it’s Crawford now and let Niemi carry the load with Rockford and hope he continues to do well.

I got to see Crawford for two seasons in Norfolk, and he was a very dependable goalie. I havnt seen him in action since (except, well….you know), but his Rockford numbers suggest that he can be a good backup. Niemi is still a greenhorn. He needs some good seasoning under his belt.

“russellguldin” talked about Huet being a Jeff Hackett (although I was thinking more Chris Osgood) type guy. Someone who can keep you in the game, and is catapulted to greatness with the right guys in front of him. I think the Hawks D can make this happen, especially if they pick up a relatively cheap, beefy defensive-minded D-man in the offseason (Semenov, Huskins, Montador, and in my wildest fantasy Rob Scuderi)

It seems natural that the more recent performances shape an opinion of how Huet did. But you have to look at the overall and he won nearly half all the Hawks’ Ws this year. I also think there’s enough evidence to say that, especially early on, he was getting the tougher starts in general. I remember constantly monitoring because Khabby’s win percentage was ridics opposed to Huet. Turned out that a good chunk of Nik’s wins were vs. teams in the bottom third of the conference at the time, not even just out of the playoffs. Fighting for worst. And all of his losses (regulation and OT/SO) were against teams above .500. The theory conspiracy dude in me thought that was clearly Tallon and Co. propping Nik up to see if he could get some team to bite on taking his salary. I think Nik was probably (quietly) on the block up until right before the trade deadline when his play started to pull away a bit from Huet. At that point Dale had to believe that having Nik around gave the Hawks a good shot at the Cup (which was a good gamble). I think any time before that, when the Hawks were solidly in 4th overall, if there were a suitor, there would’ve been a move. Now another thing that stands out is Khabby’s play vs. SJ and Detroit compared to Huet, where that’s fairly legit to worry a bit about how Huet will play against top end teams. But in this case, I think he’s trending up. I’m more inclined to think that Huet’s “game 5” is going to be a little more frequent than “game 4”. Nobody can blame Huet for the 9 roughing penalties and 8 power plays the Hawks gave up in a crucial game. Personally, for the style the Hawks want to play, Huet will end up doing very well.

Well, really, it all doesn’t matter because Huet’s contract makes him immovable. But, just like Khabby ended up doing, the Hawks will be glad they have Huet around, and it won’t take 3 sub-par years for it to happen. I gotta give Cris a B-