Ah, The Connection You'll Be Hearing Plenty Of...

In the games where huet really sucked he never looked settled. During that winning streak he looked really locked in and focused. He had more shutouts than habby too. I’m not saying he’s the second coming but I’m willing to give this “consecutive starts” theory a chance to prove itself. If he still sucks our only option would be to kidnap mason from the columbus blow jobs. We could keep him in my basement and tell him if he doesn’t rip up his contract and play for the hawks we’ll eat his family.

Unless we are readying for a deal or two with our huge crop of forwards.

Five Hole Huet blows – or at the very least is not an upgrade over Khabi. No way Five Hole withstands as many periods of constant absent and/or absent minded defensive play as Khabi did. And the mere fact that we have to resort to tearing down Khabi to make Huet look better speaks volumes about our goalie situation to begin with.

Now, if Five Hole had some depth on defense in front of him, maybe a not so bleak outlook.

That being said, I would trade our entire blue line corp except for 2 and 7 for almost anyone else’s B and C groups. We suck beyond that pair of defenders and no amount of back checking forwards will fix the gaping hole we have on defense.

So ask yourself this question: Are we a better team today than we were last year. If you answer yes to that then I need some of what you are smoking.

Honestly, just like most other people, doubt entered my mind every time Huet took the ice last season. But he really didn’t play too poorly. He was above average in GAA and SV% to go along with three shutouts. And that might be the worst season of his career. If he plays like he did in 06-07 and 07-08, then the Hawks may have a President’s trophy.

It’s hard to lose someone like Khabby, but there are probably only five shutdown goaltenders that you would hate to face in the entire league. Huet is probably in that next group, the 10-20 group that’s still in the middle third, but doesn’t strike fear in other NHL teams. Detroit has won a Cup with Osgood. Pittsburgh has won a Cup with Fleury. But Luongo, Kiprusoff, and Lundqvist don’t have Cups.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be critical of our weaknesses, and Chicago hasn’t had weakness in goal for quite a while. However, Huet will be an average goaltender leading an above average defensive unit with an excellent offense. This spells the success of another winning season, especially as our defensive corps continues to grow and progress, and we’ve added more defensive forwards to shore up defensive weaknesses through the middle on our third and fourth lines.

He went to the Lightning. They won’t have old Antero to kick around anymore in Philly.

I didn’t watch a lot of Flyer’s hockey last year, but I sure wasn’t impressed when they played the Hawks. I don’t care about any comparisons and none of us knows what the Hawks are going to bring this year. The reality is that we don’t have any of the historic goalies above. Should we just hang it up now before the season starts and accept that we suck defensively and don’t deserve to compete for a cup? Should we just go ahead and give up Toews, Kane AND Hossa because we didn’t secure a cup worthy goalie first? Goaltending alone was not why we did not make it to the SCF and if Huet posts a similar year this time around, it will not be the reason we don’t win a cup.

I’m confident that both Huet and Niemi can be successful in Chicago. Our defense will do what it can to take away chances and our goaltenders will do what they can to stop the ones that do get through.

I get it, July is slow… but being worried this early into a season that hasn’t even started, is a bit ridiculous.

But how about we see how Huet does? No one really knows, some games last year, he was all world, others he was terrible – IMHO most of the time he was a bit more good than bad – I am too lazy to look up the numbers, but wasn’t he awesome for Washington down the stretch two years ago? Also, sometimes average goalies get hot and become great in April and beyond… just an opinion, I think we need to see how the team looks – another opinion, I am smoke free and think the team is MUCH better than a year ago – just on experiences sake alone.

I wouldn’t even suggest Fuhr is a better goalie than Huet. Hell, I coulda put up a few W’s with the squad he had in front of him back in the mid 80’s. There have actually been a few chump goaltenders to hoist the Cup but I certainly wouldn’t put Huet in the same category until I see him play. Nobody’s seen the guy put in anywhere near a full season yet and I, for one, am excited (as in very) to see what he’s capable of. In his half season last year he finished top 10 in the league in both GAA and Save%. He must be hungry as hell after all these years to finally be getting his kick at the can as #1.

As for similarities to the Flyers – barf!

that I thought Huet was similar to Jeff Hackett; a man who could stop a puck when he was supposed to, but pretty weak on surprises. I watched every game that I could this year, and I stand by my OPINION. Huet did look like Hack on several occasions, but that is not a bad thing. Hack was good but he had the poor timing of being on the ’Hawks when we began our sad, sad climb down the ladder. If Hack had the defense we have along with the offensive potency in our four lines he would be far better remembered here in Chicago.

But I still think we need at least one more good d-man. I’m just really worried that one of the top 4 of them goes out with an injury and then the lack of depth in D will really show, and then I’m not so comfortable with just Huet and Niemi/Crawford.

Everyone’s so willing to trade away Buff and Steeger for a goalie and let Aliu, Beach, and Skille take a crack at the NHL. We’re basing their readiness off of what, body size and how they played in juniors or the AHL?

But there’s apparently a problem with having Crawford or Niemi as Huet’s backups because they’ve only shown success at the AHL level and haven’t yet had the chance to prove themselves in the NHL.

So what’s the difference there? Why are you willing to take the chance on a rookie forward but not a rookie goalie? If you argue that one of those forwards wouldn’t likely be among the top 6 and wouldn’t see a whole lot of ice time, I’d counter with the fact that we’re talking about backup goalies here.

Maybe Crawford and Niemi don’t have boatloads of NHL experience, but everyone has to start somewhere, and backing up Huet isn’t a bad place to begin. It seems a little too similar to saying you won’t hire someone who doesn’t have any work experience. If any of the posters on this thread were hiring managers I may never get my first “real” job.