given on how Niemi performs on Wed against a solid LA team. They can score, the D is fast moving and there goaltending has been pretty consistent this season w/ Quick (score 1 for my fantasy team)

If I were in Q’s place, I’d be focusing on him for the first half ot the remaining regular season games.

I’d sit him down and tell him he has the helm and will get all the time (except the weaker opponent of back to back games), the shepherd’s hook is gone and Huet is lashed to the crossbar to work it out.

If he consistently shits the bed through that stretch under that scenario, drop a couple hundred bucks in Melrose Park and have him whacked – then it would be up to Niemi and Crawford to see who can channel the spirit of Ken Dryden from 1971.

I agree to the sense you sometimes find that when you run away w/ the division that it’s tough to get motivated (see SJ). However…I think if you need to find something like the presidents cup to get yourself motivated then do it. I dont really care as long as we can turn it up a notch or 2.

The Hawks are a very talented team and sometimes being spoiled by that knowing how good they can play when they have a rough month or so can really feel like a kick in the ass!

Is that we need to pick our no. 1 now, so that he can a lot of consistent playing time and get into a rhythm. With that rhythm, hopefully comes more and more confidence. Up until now, I think Q’s plan of switching back and forth was sound; with the idea that one of the other would grab the no. 1 spot. Obviously neither Huet or Niemi grabbed no. 1, so IMO I think its time to pick one (flip a coin, I don’t really care) and go with him, so he has that rhythm and confidence by the time the playoffs start.

He’s 25 years old and in the NHL, he better not be a novice or we are truly fucked for watching this team all year.

don’t seem to be working. Huet played best when he was the guy earlier in the year. When he struggled, Q started using Niemi more. Huet sees less consistent playing time and the struggles don’t end. He looks like he did last year when he and Khabby alternated. He wasn’t comfortable then, but he was when Khabby was injured in Nov/Dec or whatever it was.

at least we can go 1-16-0 and still conceivably make the playoffs.

Isn’t that a song from the ’60’s, featured in the movie Animal House ?

He may be the missing link as well.

actually said this to me at the game on Sunday when I was defending Huet. I couldn’t believe it. I stopped talking and moved away to not get infected with stupid.

I want it to be April 12th and all of this shit will be decided and the playoffs will be starting and then I will have something real to worry about rather than all of this goalie nonsense.

a role player who wasn’t a hack

we might get a mixture of both! I know Niemi is 25 but if he can get back or Huet can get that confidence back we are in for a surprise. It worries me with the fans in the playoffs. Can they stick behind Huet if he allows 1 or 2 goals in the playoffs? Can either of our goalies make a mistake without 22 thousand fans yelling at them! I think come that time if we can get out of that first round then anything can happen. With expectations so high I hope we can live up. I know this is still a young team that can flip the “switch” on at any moment, they just have to want it!

Huet we know what he brings and we have seen this confidence in him. Niemi we have seen but truly we don’t know what we have. I think you have 2 average goalies which is fine but who can take that #1 spot will be determined soon. I’m all for supporting either goalie b/c it’s all about that ONE GOAL !
Plus if we don’t straighten up soon I think my heart can last more than another 5 weeks…or longer when playoffs come around

Put the rookie in goal and everyone has to raise their game a bit more.

You know, I thought that was the case earlier in the season and part of the reason why Niemi started out so well. I think now the team has pretty much said fuck it, we’re playing the same no matter who’s in goal now, which might be part of the reason why Niemi’s play has started to level out

There is always pressure to play highly paid players in any sport no matter how bad they’re sucking (ex see: Chicago Cubs – Bradley, Milton; Soriano, Alfonso)

it’s “tenterhooks” not “tenderhooks”.

It is bad when the editorial staff at the newspaper are illiterate.

one time, the phrase on tenterhooks would have evoked an image that was immediately understandable.

It comes from one of the processes of making woollen cloth. After it had been woven, the cloth still contained oil from the fleece, mixed with dirt. It was cleaned in a fulling mill, but then it had to be dried carefully or it would shrink and crease. So the lengths of wet cloth were stretched on wooden frames, and left out in the open for some time. This allowed them to dry and straightened their weave. These frames were the tenters, and the tenter hooks were the metal hooks used to fix the cloth to the frame. At one time, it would have been common in manufacturing areas to see fields full of these frames (older English maps sometimes marked an area as a tenter-field). So it was not a huge leap of the imagination to think of somebody on tenterhooks as being in an state of anxious suspense, stretched like the cloth on the tenter. The tenters have gone, but the meaning has survived.

Tenter comes from the Latin tendere, to stretch, via a French intermediate. The word has been in the language since the fourteenth century, and on tenters soon after became a phrase meaning painful anxiety. The exact phrase on tenterhooks seems first to have been used by Tobias Smollett in Roderick Random in 1748.

balls

No more debate, we’re going with a fire hydrant for the rest of the season.

I don’t even know where to start… I can’t argue with “the truth”

Uncle

I’d certainly miss you if you took a break.

I hope the eye problem is very minor and resolves quickly and painlessly on its own.

who knows what CNS and meeshak will be up to next, if you’re not around to give them a mommy paddlin’?

You are both needed and wanted here. Hurry back!

You’re one of the keys to this site! I thought you stopped posting because Krome was hitting on you.

Granted, i haven’t been here all that long but it seemed like you’d been absent lately.

Hope you are feeling better quickly! You can still see color, right? So you’ll know when CNS and meeshak get rambunctious again and can have someone lay down the law for you. :)

is that Niemi is the better shootout goalie and Huet sucks, right? (oh you thought I forgot about you!)

On a serious note, I’m assuming this was possibly a reply fail to my post above? If so, my point was solely about Niemi’s fundamentals, not as compared to Huet. I do disagree though that Huet’s fundamentals- even when at his best – are worse than Niemi’s. That statement makes my head asplode. But ultimately it’s our own opinions.

It just seems you want to reduced Huet to an orange traffic cone to support your argument. He’s a swimmer, he’s a flopper, he has post aversion, he’s fundamentally unsound and use two very bad examples to support this. Yes, he’s having a bad season in terms of SV% and he does look very bad at times, but throughout his career he has been what I will call a slightly above average goalie and there is a reason for that – he has above orange-cone-level skills.

So the alternative is Niemi. He’s been playing hockey since his childhood. I know he played in the juniors from 2000-05 and in the pros in Finland for 3 yrs before coming to the Hawks almost 2 yrs ago. After at least 10 yrs of organized hockey at the goalie position, I just don’t see, after all that time, how 10-12 games is suddenly going to convert him into a superstud. Hopefully someone will emerge though.

but that graph is pretty damn cool