Posts Tagged ‘Cristobal Huet’

Cristobal Huet and others clear waivers

September 27th, 2010 by Leigh Michael Dengis

Huet's natural habitat

Stan Bowman was finally able to sweep the Cristobal Huet problem under the rug. To the surprised of no one, he cleared waivers making it possible for him to play in Switzerland. As rumored, Huet is set to join HC Fribourg-Gotteron SA of the Swiss National League A on loan. His $5.6 million annual salary will no longer count against the Hawks’ salary cap, as it will be stashed in the AHL.

He’s an NHL-caliber goaltender that became victim to the contract he signed two summers ago. On the bright side, he’ll be playing Switzerland – where he played prior to the NHL – and will earn another salary on top of the $5.6 million.

In two seasons with the Blackhawks, Huet played 89 games with a 46-29-8 record, a 2.51 goals-against average and a .902 save percentage.

Forwards Evan Brophey and Jeffe Taffe also cleared waivers today, and have been assigned toRockford. The IceHogs’ training camp is already in progress. Hugh Jessiman was also placed on waivers earlier today. We’ll find out his fate tomorrow.

Training camp roster as it stands -

Forwards (19) – Kyle Beach, Bryan Bickell, Dave Bolland, Troy Brouwer, Jake Dowell, Marian Hossa, Hugh Jessiman, Patrick Kane, Tomas Kopecky, Igor Makarov, Jeremy Morin, Fernando Pisani, Ryan Potulny, Ludvig Rensfeldt, Patrick Sharp, Jack Skille, Ben Smith, Viktor Stalberg, Jonathan Toews

Defensemen (10) – Nick Boynton, Brian Campbell, Brian Connelly, Jassen Cullimore, Jordan Hendry, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Duncan Keith, Nick Leddy, John Scott, Brent Seabrook

Goalies (4) – Corey Crawford, Alec Richards, Hannu Toivonen, Marty Turco

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Blackhawks 2010 training camp roster revealed

September 17th, 2010 by Leigh Michael Dengis

Players have descended upon the United Center for media day, and training camp will officially begin tomorrow in front of a packed house. The Blackhawks finally announced their camp roster today with two notable players not in attendance – Cristobal Huet and Marcus Kruger. Per Stan Bowman, the plan to move Huet to Europe is still a work in progress, and Kruger stayed in Sweden with an injured foot. Also Mathis Olimb won’t be skating because of the injuries he sustained after Kyle Beach jumped him at prospect camp in July.

2010 training camp roster –

Forwards (33) – Kyle Beach, Bryan Bickell, Dave Bolland, Brandon Bollig, Steele Boomer**, Evan Brophey, Troy Brouwer, Chris DiDomenico, Jake Dowell, Rob Flick, Byron Froese, David Gilbert, Mirko Hoefflin, Marian Hossa, Hugh Jessiman, Patrick Kane, Rob Klinkhammer, Tomas Kopecky, Igor Makarov, Jeremy Morin, Ratislav Palikorovsky**, Philippe Paradis, Brandon Pirri, Fernando Pisani, Ryan Potulny, Ludvig Rensfeldt, Patrick Sharp, Jack Skille, Ben Smith, Viktor Stalberg, Jeff Taffe, Nick Tarnasky**, Jonathan Toews

Defensemen (17) – Nick Boynton, Wade Bookbank**, Brian Campbell, Jonathan Carlsson, Brian Connelly, Jassen Cullimore, Simon Danis-Pepin, Jordan Hendry, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Dallas Jackson**, Duncan Keith, Shawn Lalonde, Nick Leddy, John Scott, Brent Seabrook, Ryan Stanton, Ivan Vishnevskiy

Goalies (6) – Corey Crawford, Joe Palmer*, Alec Richards, Kent Simpson, Hannu Toivonen, Marty Turco

*AHL contract
** Non-roster invitee

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Bowman clears more cap space by trading Marty Reasoner

July 22nd, 2010 by Leigh Michael Dengis

In an effort to free up enough cap space to re-sign restricted free agent Antti Niemi, Stan Bowman traded Marty Reasoner and his $1,150,000 cap hit to the Panthers. In return, the Hawks received 29-year-old journeyman, Jeff Taffe ($550,000 cap hit). Bowman’s latest move is nothing more than a salary dump. Taffe should play most of the season with Rockford, and he may make a rare appearance with the Blackhawks on a bottom line if needed.

Today’s trade is a tell-tale sign that Bowman is going to re-sign Niemi. Hopefully they can come to terms before the scheduled arbitration hearing on July 29. As it stands right now, the Blackhawks have sixteen players locked-up with $138,410 cap space.

Cristobal Huet’s ($5,625,000) cap hit will come off the books before the season starts, but the organization will have his contract count against them till they can send it to Rockford. The collective bargaining agreement allows any team to go over the cap ceiling by 10%, and the Hawks will use that space to re-sign Jordan Hendry and Bryan Bickell on top of Niemi.

The 2010-11 Blackhawks’ cap ceiling ($59,400,000) plus the 10% summer cushion ($5,940,000) equals to a summer ceiling of $65,340,000. So the Blackhawks have $6,013,410 cap space with the summer cushion. As I mentioned above, Bowman will use this space until he needs to have his roster legal by opening night. When you take out Huet’s cap hit from the equation, the Blackhawks actually have $5,763,410 to work with.

Hawks re-sign Evan Brophey

The Blackhawks re-signed 23-year-old center Evan Brophey to a one-year deal worth $500,000. He played 79 games in Rockford last season with 14 goals and 17 assists. Going into the off-season there is no way I would have thought Brophey would crack the Blackhawks roster out of training camp, but a cap friendly hit might have an effect on where he plays come fall.

Changes have been reflected on our In the Organization page above.

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An Antti Niemi puff piece

June 8th, 2010 by Leigh Michael Dengis

Antti Niemi (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

A little over two years ago, then general manager Dale Tallon signed Antti Niemi, a 24-year old Finnish netminder, as an unrestricted free agent. That summer Cristobal Huet signed a lucrative four-year deal to help carry the goaltending with the oft injured Nikolai Khabibulin for the Blackhawks, so Antti Niemi was reassigned to Rockford, Illinois to play for the IceHogs, their AHL affiliate. It may not have been and ideal situation for Neimi, but the year he spent in Rockford getting acclimated to the North American style of ice hockey was beneficial to his development.

Khabibulin was not re-signed in the off-season, leaving an opening for Niemi to start the 2009-10 season in Chicago as Huet’s backup. He beat out Corey Crawford in training camp and shutout the Florida Panthers in his first start of the season. The Blackhawks’ brass never looked back.

Head coach Joel Quenneville became more confident with Niemi as the season progressed, and flirted with the idea of handing him the No. 1 job as Huet struggled down the stretch. On March 28th, Quenneville was tired of making subtle advances, and he went all-in. Antti Niemi was the guy the Blackhawks were going to battle with in the post-season, and Cristobal Huet was to ride the pine for the second year in a row. He has played all of 19 minutes and 56 seconds in relief of Niemi in the first game of the conference semi-final series against the Canucks since the move was made.

Niemi has been everything the Blackhawks needed him to be in the post-season. He boasts a 15-6 playoff record, and is one win away from hoisting the Stanley Cup in his rookie year. That is one win away from having his name mentioned in the same breath as Cam Ward (2006), Patrick Roy (1986) and Ken Dryden (1971) as other goalies who have taken their teams to the Promised Land in their rookie seasons. All three players mentioned won the Conn Smythe (post-season MVP) that season, and Antti Niemi is one of the Blackhawks in the running for the award this year.

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I’m Just Saying

April 12th, 2010 by Leigh Michael Dengis

So, I spent some time this afternoon on CapGeek.com browsing the team pages and found the buyout calculator. I wondered how much it would set back the organization if the remaining two years of Cristobal Huet‘s contract were bought out. Trading Huet this off-season would the ideal move. But if that doesn’t turn out to be an option, would Stan Bowman opt buy him out? That is if Bowman is even interested in moving his $5M+ backup. Anyway, if the information bellow is correct, buying out the French netminder seems to be do-able.

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The Penalty Kill (Remastered)

April 6th, 2010 by Leigh Michael Dengis

The one constant through the year, Ray, has been the penalty kill. The Blackhawks have won games like an army of steamrollers. The have constantly had problems with their power play, their goaltending and their defense. Each facet of their game has been rebuilt, erased and rebuilt again. But the penalty kill has marked the time. This ability to stymie opponents and score down a man is part of the Blackhawks’ present, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.

- Terrence Mannakov

A little over two months ago I wrote a post about the successful penalty kill of the Blackhawks.  It has been one of the consistently good areas of play from this team all seaosn. If some other facet of their game is on the fritz, the boys have always had the penalty kill to hang their jock straps on. On January 28th (when I wrote the first post), they were fourth in the league at keeping opponents scoreless with the man-advantage at 85.6-percent. Today, the Blackhawks are fifth in the league at 84.8-percent – they haven’t allowed a goal in four-on-five situations in their last five games.

One of the most overused hockey clichés is that the goalie a team’s best penalty killer. Yea, they do have a heightened level of importance in shorthanded situations, but if the defense is anemic, a goalie has no chance of success on kill.  In the case of the Blackhawks, the skaters are a big reason their penalty kill is fifth in the league.  At the time this post was written -  compared to their peers around the league with ten or more games played -  Cristobal Huet had a goals-against average of 4.58 (eighth) while shorthanded  and Antti Niemi with a goals-against average of 5.37 (twenty-second).  Those numbers don’t support the cliché for the 2009-10 version of the Blackhawks.

When I think about the penalty kill, my mind automatically goes to the team’s defense. Coach Quenneville has the luxury of a roster full of capable defensemen and two-way forwards that are affective in their own zone and the back-check. On the blue line, Quenneville has consistently relied on a core of guys that haven’t been afraid to put their bodies on the line and block shots. Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook get all the press, but you cant overlook the contributions of Brent Sopel and Niklas Hjalmarsson on the kill. When it comes to blocked shots, Sopel leads the team with 5.6 per sixty minutes and Hjalmarsson is third with 4.6 (trailing Seabrook by 0.1). The Swede also brings a calm, smart defensive style that thrives in four-on-five situations.

I alluded to Quenneville’s use of two-way forwards on the kill earlier, and Jonathan Toews, Marian Hossa and Patrick Sharp are staples on the penalty-killing unit because of their offensive ability. They are effective at clearing their zone of the puck and taking the action to the other end of the ice. As it stands today, the Blackhawks lead the league in shorthanded goals with eleven (Maria Hossa 5, Patrick Sharp 2, Kris Versteeg 2, Duncan Keith 1 and Troy Brouwer 1). Although Toews hasn’t scored on the kill, he has three shorthanded assists this season, and the captain’s value doesn’t always show up on the scoresheet. For example, when the Coyotes visited the UC a few weeks ago, Toews skated the puck into the defensive zone alone, and drew a cross-checking penalty from Lee Stempniak while the other ‘Hawks were executing a line change.

The fact that the Blackhawks don’t spend much time in the box helps as well. Currently, they have the second fewest shorthanded situations in the league with 250, and have played total of three games this season where they didn’t have to field the penalty kill. Fewer instances of four-on-five hockey is obviously key, and it means that the defense feels less stress and won’t break as easily if they weren’t so effective at staying out of the penalty box. With the way this team’s defense and goaltending has fared this season, that’s a good thing.

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Huet’s Last Stand – Blackhawks 3, Blue Jackets 8

March 26th, 2010 by Leigh Michael Dengis

Huet's expression says it all

Didn’t have a chance to watch last night’s game. By the looks of it, this was a good one to miss. The Blackhawks lost to the Blue Jackets 8-3. Traveled to sunny Florida for some non-hockey related relaxation for the weekend, and here I am writing a game review for a game I didn’t see. That’s dedication…wait…not really. It’s overcast and there are periods of light rain, and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to continue the on going series regarding my dislike of Cristobal Huet. Also, if I tell the girlfriend I’m writing it postpones the mindless window-shopping she’ll eventually drag me to once the sun comes out.

Anyway, by glancing at the box score it was simple to discern where the problem area was – in net. Huet let in seven goals on twenty-seven shots on goal. It appeared as though Antti Niemi had the No. 1 gig at this point, but Huet’s performance in Columbus set it in stone. I’ve been in Niemi’s corner for a while now, and believe Quenneville should pencil him in the lineup every opportunity he can. Then he can focus on improving the defense in the nine games remaining in the regular season, and hope that Kim Johnsson can return to the lineup sooner then later.

From what I’ve read around the World Wide Web is that all the blame shouldn’t land squarely on Thursday’s starter. (That’s the case in most losses.) But when you are making over $5M per season you have to better then this. This is the best team the organization has assembled in decades, and they can’t have a goaltender this soft in net going into the playoffs. It wouldn’t be tough to argue that Niemi has been the goalie with more mental tenacity of the Blackhawks’ tandem. There will be some concern from the front office to the fan-base whether a rookie goalie can take the Blackhawks to the Promised Land, but it’s been done before.

Next up, the Blackhawks will host the Blue Jackets at the United Center this Sunday. I would expect a different outcome in this game. Last night’s game will serve as another wake up call. Despite the big loss, the Blackhawks clinched a playoff spot.

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Lalonde Assigned To Rockford, And More Movement

March 17th, 2010 by Leigh Michael Dengis

Well, the Belleville Bulls season is over and that means the OHL career of Blackhawk defensive prospect (Red Rising’s #2) Shawn Lalonde is over as well. It was a disappointing season in Belleville for the Bulls, but not so much for Lalonde. He has his best season for the Bulls playing in fifty-eight games tallying fifty-six points (thirteen goals and forty-three assists). Lalonde signed a three-year entry-level deal with the organization earlier this season, and Tuesday he was reassigned to Rockford. He should be in the lineup on Friday when the IceHogs face the Peoria Rivermen.

More minor league movement –

We already know that Nick Boynton cleared waivers Tuesday, and will be in the lineup in Anaheim as Kim Johnsson didn’t make the trip to Los Angeles with the team due to injury. There have been reports he will meet the Blackhawks in Phoenix. Boynton has 547 NHL games on his resume with 135 points (33 goals, 102 assists), 810 penalty minutes and a plus/minus rating of +18.

Corey Crawford was recalled for his first cup of coffee this season, and will surprisingly get the start Wednesday against the Ducks. He is replacing Cristobal Huet in the lineup because he has the flu. Yea, the goaltending issues haven’t improved, but I don’t really understand why Coach Quenneville isn’t going to allow Antti Niemi get the start in the back-to-back games. He could use the work with fourteen games left in the regular season. Subsequently, the IceHogs recalled Alec Richards from Toledo.

Changes have been reflected on our In the Organization page above.

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Weekend Review; Ovechkin Hit On Campbell Reaction

March 14th, 2010 by Leigh Michael Dengis

Two afternoon games this weekend, back-to-back with a possible four points to be had, but the Blackhawks came away with just one. The ‘Hawks lost 3-2 to Philadelphia on Saturday, and 4-3 (OT) to Washington on Sunday. Going into the weekend the goaltending and team defense were under a microscope. The combined goaltending efforts from Cristobal Huet (in Philadelphia) and Antti Niemi (vs. Washington) were good. No complaints on that front. However, the defense was suspect giving away both games late.

No one likes playing afternoon games, especially back-to-back like the Blackhawks did, but you can’t let leads slip away in the closing minutes of the games. Fatigue played a part in Sunday’s overtime loss to the Capitals (see the back-check on Nicklas Backstom’s game-winning goal). Mentally, the ‘Hawks need to be tougher then they were this weekend.

Anyway, just as the Blackhawks are able to roll out a healthy lineup Marian Hossa and Kim Johnsson were scratched from Sunday’s game with ‘lower-body’ injuries (both are day-to-day), and now they might be without Brian Campbell’s services for the remainder of the season after Alexander Ovechkin’s dirty hit. It’s being reported that Campbell has a broken collarbone and a few broken ribs. All of a sudden, Johnsson has become a very important piece to the puzzle. He’s a puck moving defenseman, will have a bigger role on the power play and will move to the second pairing with Niklas Hjalmarsson.

Ovechkin has always played with reckless abandon, which is an aspect of his game that makes him one of the most exciting players to watch in the game. Shoving a defenseless Campbell head first into the boards is an example of how his style of play put a player’s health in jeopardy. Ovechkin was booted from the game with a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct. He should get at least a one-game suspension for this.

Next up, the Blackhawks go west for back-to-back games in Anaheim on Wednesday and in Los Angeles on Thursday. Expect for a defenseman to be recalled from Rockford before Wednesday. My guess, Nick Boynton.

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Weekend Starting Rotation Set

March 13th, 2010 by Leigh Michael Dengis

Coach Quenneville announced his goaltending rotation for the weekend yesterday. He will have Cristobal Huet man the pipes today in Philadelphia, and Antti Niemi will get the start at home against Washington. There isn’t much you can read into having two different goalies start in back-to-back games. Teams do it all the time. The goaltender Quenneville opted to start at each location can provide some insight into which goaltender he has more faith in, or maybe it’s reading too much into the whole situation.

Anyway, Huet is being treated with kid gloves once again by giving him the start away from the hostile home crowd. Quenneville did this earlier in the season with Huet – have him work out the kinks on the road away from the boos. At this point in the season, this is not what a playoff team wants to be doing with a $5M goalie. Tim Sassone wrote that Niemi’s the marquee start against the Capitals at home is the writing on the wall that Quenneville favors the Finn. I couldn’t agree more.

Not only will the goaltending of Huet and Niemi be under the microscope, the defense will need to be solid in back-to-back afternoon games against two of the better teams in the East. The Flyers are physical, and they could leave the Blackhawks’ liking their wounds on the flight back to Chicago. The Capitals’ won’t show any mercy when they unleash their high-powered offense on Sunday – they lead the league with 266 goals for.

* * * *

Hockey filled weekends are great, especially this one. That is if you aren’t attending Sunday’s game in person. Good luck with the post St. Patricks’ Day (well, the day everyone that works celebrates the greatest holiday ever) hangover, and remembering to move your clock ahead an hour for that 11:30am start time.

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