"Faith in the ability of a leader is of slight service unless it be united with faith in his justice."—George Goethals
The Blackhawks are winning again.
That’s good for both the franchise and the NHL, which sees increased success whenever any of the Original Six teams are winning.
But all is not well in Hawksville, where despite dramatically improved play following an equally dramatic dismissal of Dennis Savard, there is still a slight problem. The problem isn't the penalty killing nor is it the power-play lines, it’s not the coach anymore (Quenneville is perfectly fine), and it’s not the front office.
If you’ve given up, I don’t blame you.
The problem is that there’s still a goalie platoon.
What’s looming in the background isn’t necessarily that goalie platoons are akin to the NFL’s quarterback platoons, in that they're doomed to fail. Remember that in 2006-07, the San Jose Sharks had a fairly nice run against competition utilizing the goalie platoon.
It’s that Chicago isn’t exactly the place for it.
Allow me to elaborate.
Goalie platoons traditionally work when you have a mostly-veteran team versus a collection of mostly young (some not even twenty—yikes!) and inexperienced players. Case in point: I’ll present the aforementioned San Jose example.
The Sharks had a strong veteran core of players to support the goalies and execute well-run defensive schemes. They also had a true center in Joe Thornton, and a superb veteran leader in Patrick Marleau.
Chicago doesn’t have a dominating center to direct the ice. Toews and Kane are actually better suited as wings—and while Havlat is certainly a strong veteran presence, he’s not the captain—neither officially with the “C,” or otherwise.
The other big name you might look to for leadership, Nikolai Khabibulin, is neutralized because he’s kind of in the middle of this entire goalie affair.
Younger players need consistency from goalies because they need to know what they’re working with.
In return, goalies need to be able to develop a rapport with younger players, because they’ll have to learn where the young players' weaknesses are, and where they’ll have to pay closer attention to for pucks.
In this instance, platooning goalies do neither.
For Joel Quenneville, the real issue behind solving this problem is that both goalies are now playing well.
Had Cristobal Huet continued his rather-uninspired play it would have been a fairly elementary decision: Bench the offseason signing in favor of the contractual albatross who has, even in his less convincing games, kept the team within reach of winning.
Instead, Huet decided to turn in the best performance we’ve seen from either Chicago goaltender this year.
That should make Quenneville’s decision easy, right? I mean, Huet is significantly younger, and with a decisive performance like that, the job should now be his, correct?
Wrong.
What it means now is that it’s going to come down to something no judge ever wants to have to base a decision on—style points.
Both products are pretty well known. We know exactly what we’re going to get from both Huet and Khabibulin each night.
The difference is in how they go about it.
Khabibulin is going to give you more cover-ups of the puck—meaning he’ll also give you more face-offs in your own end, which is often highly detrimental to a young team that typically lacks defensive prowess.
What Khabibulin won’t give you is longevity. At age 35, he’s not exactly what one would deem as spry and youthful, and with 14 of those years spent in league service, he’s more than likely taken his share of beatings.
Huet gives you a lot more chances for getting a rebound and a quick break farther up ice—not that Chicago has taken a whole lot of advantage of that.
He also gives you a more stable face as goalie—as Khabibulin’s junior by two years, he’ll be around a bit longer. Huet has also not taken the NHL beating that Nikolai Khabibulin has. Huet has only seven seasons of ice time, none of which came with the same brutally-high number of games that Khabibulin has played.
The problem with Huet is that he’s grossly inconsistent and that his blessing is his curse. He gives up a lot of rebounds, something that young teams—and in particular, this young team—have trouble controlling. As a result, Chicago would have to play tougher defense in their own end than they would with Khabibulin.
So, in the spirit of the upcoming election, allow me to make an endorsement.
I, for whatever it’s worth, endorse Nikolai Khabibulin. This Hawks unit just doesn’t have the tools to make Huet work quite yet, but it will come. More than likely it’ll even be before this season reaches the halfway mark.
The problem is that the Blackhawks need to win early, and a slow start in the Western Conference will make postseason play neigh-on impossible to reach.
This isn’t to say that I don’t think Huet won't or shouldn't be the goalie when the season ends, just that Khabibulin is a better fit for the time being. In fact, if Huet isn't getting the greater play as the end of the season draws near, then there will be more serious issues.
Ultimately this decision will fall on the leader, coach Joel Quenneville. Whatever his decision, Chicago needs to hope that the players don’t lose their faith in him.
Ray Bogusz can be reached via the comment box, his profile, or via e-mail: raybogusz@yahoo.com
He loves your feedback, both good and bad, and is enjoying writing about the Blackhawks this season. He is also starting a Blackhawks blog. Details to come, and Thanks for Reading!
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