Likely 2009-10 starter Cristobal Huet uninspiring for Chicago B...

If Huet is the #1 Goalie next year it will be a huge step in the wrong direction , Tallon overpaid for him, one of the few mistakes he has made with the Hawks

What did they expect? He couldn't have been dropped into a more tense precarious situation, rusty from a lack of work.

Huet is a good goalie going up against a great team.
The Red Wings are a high scoring team no matter who the goalie is.
Thev secret to beating them is simple...
SCORE MORE GOALS THAN THEY DO.

Huet is terrible! They need to eat some salary and move him.

This will be debated all summer and into training camp and I said before the playoffs that we better enjoy the ride with a hot (not so much this series) Khabibulin because if the Hawks are going to rely on Huet to carry them next year we may be in trouble...Definitely going to need a competent backup going into next year....I've never been a fan of Huet but the Hawks made there bed with this signing..

This is part of why I don't by this whole "Dave Tallon is a genius GM for rebuilding the Hawks" theme I've been hearing.

It's easy to rebuild a team when you have high draft picks year after year. With the goalie situation he paid too much for a mediocre goalie and then tried to get rid of the better goalie. Lucky for him he couldn't succeed.

Now, going into next year they have to be seriously questioning if Huet can be "the guy" for the team. Can they afford to pay Khabibulin to return? Can they afford to offer a long-term deal to ANOTHER goalie? Is the team defense strong enough to offer a more conventional backup (say Conklin) less money to compete to be the starter?

Tallon's most trying times are ahead of him.

He was even worse than you show- look at game and learn to read the box score- Detroit scored 4 times on their first 17 shots before Huet was yanked--- it was 5 for 26 overall as he came in late for some dump in saves to pad the sheets-- he collapsed under pressure on the national stage at the Winter Classic and reinforced that yesterday - dump him and use the salry to keep the other players- Niemi Crawford and each can stop more than 4 out of 5

Finally, the reality talk starts to set in about what the Hawks are going to be saddled with the next few years in net. Dale Tallon, i think has generally made good decisions; however, it's pretty obvious he sort of blew it with Huet. He gave that large of a contract to Huet, expecting him to be the lead goalie this season. Obviously, Tallon felt that Khabibulen wasn't strong enough to finish off his final year, much less consider resigning. Once it became obvious that Huet wasn't capable of unseating Khabby, a large red warning flag should have been raised by Blackhawk fans.

The Hawks spent 12 mil.+ on goaltenders this season; however, obviously they'll not be able to continue to do that. So folks, it appears the team is stuck with a highly overpriced backup goalie, who actually could be considered a 3rd stringer, for the next couple of years anyways. Khabby will have to be let go. There's no other alternatives there. So unless there's some goalie in the junior circuits, or on some other teams bench, that's ready to burst on the scene, that the Blackhawks can come up with at a less than reasonable price, goaltending will definitely be a large thorn in this team's growth. And if game 4 didn't show how much difference goaltending can mean to a team, there's nothing that could.

we are in for a long season if huet is our #1

Huet is bad - plain and simple. He's lazy, slow from side to side, and the entire league knows to go high on him. Time for Tallon to admit his mistake and dump him, even if we end up eating part or most of his salary. Resign Habby (not likely at his price, but it would be great if we could) and let Crawford and Niemi learn on the fly.

Huet is overrated. He gives up way too many rebounds. The bigger problem is that his teamates don't have the confidence in him. You could see it yesterday. The only reason he came back in goal yesterday is because Tallon paid an arm and a leg to get him in a Hawk uniform. He has painted himself in a corner with his decision to sign him to a multi-year muli- millin dollar contract. He has no where else to go. Who in their right mind would want to trade for that?

huet has his shaky moments, but he's a bona fide nhl goalie. he'll never play 60 games a year, he's more like a 45-50 game goalie, but he has stolen games for los angeles, montréal, washington, and chicago throughout his career. i was deeply sorry to see him traded out of here to washington last season, not just because price was apparently not ready, but because huet was a steadying influence. if i were chicago fans, i wouldn't be so worried long-term. either way, even if patrick roy c. 1993 was in net for the hawks in game 4, they woulda still lost 5-1.

Memo to Dale Tallon:

When handing out new, big money contracts:

Beware of a complacent Khabibulin. Beware of a complacent Havlat.

Injuries and the teams success aside, neither showed up until it was most important for themselves financially.

Just sayin'

Big Mistake! Detroit has barely 2 million invested in 2 goalies and we have over 10 million.

Tallon should have resigned Patrick Lalime instead of this bust out.

This goalie doen't have a style because he is always on his pads flopping around.

If Khabibulin can't play, I would start Corey Crawford in game # 5.because:
1. Chicago will play a lot better defensively because they will be scared of an inexperienced at the NHL level goaltender ending their season for them.
2. Huet knows he's good for $5 million a year for the next couple of years win or lose but Crawford knows that with a couple of wins this would probably be his one and only chance to make the big time thus he would have an incredible incentive to play well for as long as Chicago is still in the series.

DetfaninOrlando wrote:

Is the team defense strong enough to offer a more conventional backup (say Conklin) less money to compete to be the starter?

Well, it definitely won't be Conklin since the contract he signed with the Wings has another year left on it.

Ladle5 wrote:

dump him and use the salry to keep the other players

I see where you're coming from, but unfortunately, you can't just "dump" a player. Unless they can find a team that is willing to trade for him that has that amount of salary cap space, or some team that will pick up that contract on waivers next season, they're stuck paying him what the contract is worth. There's a reason none of the other teams Huet has played for has kept him, and that should've been a red flag for Chicago NOT to sign him in the first place. However, that's neither here nor there. In short, Chicago's front office made a mistake, and now they have to pay for it.

I'm still amazed how Detroit gets away with winning by having two goalies paid 2 million for both of them. Osgood has the best save percentage than all the goalies still left in the playoffs. Conklin is an excellent goalie who gets about 850,000 a year. I think Osgood gets 1.25 million. Osgood reminds me of Billy Smith who played with the Islanders in the late 70's, early 80's. During the season pretty good, playoff's really good.

Huet was pretty good all season long until they stopped rotating. The Hawks should look into Dustin Tokarski. But I think the Tampa Bay Lightning got him already....

C-Swan wrote:

<quoted text>
Well, it definitely won't be Conklin since the contract he signed with the Wings has another year left on it.

Not trying to be a jerk, but you're absolutely wrong. Conklin's contract is up after this year, and he will not be resigned by the Wings. They have Jimmy Howard ready to come up from Grand Rapids and he has no more options so they either have to make room for him or let him walk (Howard).

They're going to let Conklin walk instead, so if the Hawks want him they should make him a reasonable offer.