Last night Cristobal Huet saved twelve of the thirteen shots the Nashville Predators threw at him. The lone goal Huet let in was kicked in by teammate Niklas Hjalmarsson early in the second frame. Barring Hjalmarsson’s blunder, Huet had a solid night. The Predators’ didn’t offer much in the way of an offensive challenge, but he came up with saves when needed.
I’ve said this before; the Blackhawks’ don’t need to have stellar goaltending to come away with the win, and that point has been made evident in the seven games on the season. When a team out-shoots their opponent, it takes a lot of pressure off of the defense and goalie – the Blackhawks have done this in every game so far. On the season, they have totaled 255 shots (36.4 shots per game), and their opponents have tabulated 122 shots (17.4 shots per game) – that’s a +133 shot differential.
I think every goalie in the league would consider facing 17.4 shots per game an easy night. If Huet were playing adequate at best, his save percentage wouldn’t be so low. So it bothered me when I found out that there were still people coming up with excuses as to Huet’s early season woes.
I read a statement after the Flames’ game, where he let up three goals in less than a minute, declaring that any idiot could tell that the defenses was responsible for Huet’s horrible outing. Yes, there are times where the defense will breakdown or there will be a costly turnover in the defensive zone, but it is the goalies job to come up with big saves when those instances happen. Huet wasn’t able to do that vs. Calgary, so don’t defend the guy when he sucked.
With all that being said, as much as I or any other fan becomes frustrated with the inconsistent play of Huet, he is the No. 1 guy in Chicago. Coach Quenneville will keep trotting Huet out there since Antti Niemi is a long way from posing a real threat to the francophone. I do, however, think that Quenneville opted to use Huet against the anemic Predators’ offense, so he could build off of a sure thing – a 3-1 win in Nashville.
By the way, I don’t miss the red pads.
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