Chicago Blackhawks Knee-Jerk Reaction: We've Got a Problem

The Chicago Blackhawks, the cover boys of ESPN the Magazine, EA Sports' NHL'10, and the trendy pick of many analysts to compete for, if not win, this year's Stanley Cup, lost their season opener in Helsinki, Finland on Friday afternoon.

The Florida Panthers won 4-3 in a shootout.

Patrick Kane had two points, including the Hawks' first goal of the new year in the defeat. Dustin Byfuglien and Patrick Sharp also scored for the Blackhawks. While the offense was certainly adequate in the loss, there are a number of stories from this game that are disturbing.

The most frustrating of which is the play of goalie Cristobal Huet.

The Blackhawks outplayed the Panthers almost across the board. Florida was out-shot 55-24, the Hawks won 10 more faceoffs than the Panthers, and had almost twice as many takeaways (15-8).

But they lost.

Huet, who signed a big money contract to replace Nikolai Khabibulin before last year, was allowed to watch the stretch run last year from the bench because of the miraculous return to championship-form of the Bulin Wall.

Now he has the reigns to himself, and his opening performance left a lot to be desired.

The knock on Huet in Washington and then in Chicago last year was that he drops to his knees too quickly and is vulnerable if the puck is elevated.

Florida scored all three of their regulation goals, and both of their tallies in the shootout, by going top shelf.

In no way should the Panthers' performance be sold short. They hustled and hit and kept coming back, as the Hawks led on three separate occasions and failed to hold the lead once.

Huet's play raises some serious issues for the Hawks. They had a wide open contest to win the backup job during the preseason, and the job was won by Anti Niemi. Neither Niemi or Corey Crawford, who cleared waivers on Thursday, has been overwhelming in their limited action in the NHL.

The Blackhawks will rely heavily on Huet to be adequate in goal this year.

With a top tier offense, the Hawks can count on goals coming like they did against Florida. The Blackhawks defense should be improved as well, with the additions of solid two-way forward Tomas Kopecky and center John Madden.

Huet will need to stop better than 87.5 percent of the shots against him, though.

If Huet is unreliable in goal this year, the pressure will be on the Hawks to outscore their opponents every night. With Marian Hossa out until around Thanksgiving, and with the Hawks playing 21 of their first 25 games against Western Conference opponents, Huet will need to step up his game soon.

If the Blackhawks don't get better work between the pipes, the hopes of their energized fan base of a championship will be a bad dream.