The Quandary with Blackhawks' Nikolai Khabibulin

Nikolai Khabibulin signed a one-year deal with the Blackhawks, as backup goalie, after Ray Emery bolted for the Flyers over the summer.  I thought losing `Razor was huge, as he gave coach Joel Quenneville the luxury of two standout goalies on the squad.  

`Bulin's last winning year was the 2008 - 2009 season, going 25 - 8 -7, when he was with the Blackhawks.  He spent the next four seasons with the Oilers, and finished each with a losing record.  In last year's lockout-shorted season, he was in backup capacity and raked in an unremarkable 4 - 6 - 1.

After a solid game against the Islanders on October 11th, `Bulin took netminding duties against the Lightning on October 24th.  To say it was brutal is putting it mildly.  A team doesn't just give up six goals and expect to win the match.  Fans wanted his head.     

But during the October 28th game against the Wild, I remarked to our Blackhawks community that I hoped `Bulin had another go on-net the following night against the Senators.  I felt he needed "reps on net."  Again, as backup with the Oilers, he didn't play a lot of games.  I imagine it's very tough to pick up the flow of the game, and your team in particular, if you're not playing regularly.   

Matt Carle scored the first Lightning goal with a slapshot from the blueline.  There was just a smattering of traffic in front of the net, but by virtue of the fact that Carle had a shooting lane, `Bulin should've tracked the puck well.  Instead, he looked like he lost the puck in flight.      

Then, in the second period, Steven Stamkos rushed up ice.  The Blackhawks defended the 1-on-2 attack quite well.  Stamkos couldn't outskate our defensemen, but he knew how to pull `Bulin out of position by skating to the right circle.  I imagine he's a sharpshooter, so give him a sliver of net, and he will score.  That's what `Bulin did, unfortunately, by taking the wrong angle on the shot.  Score, Stamkos did, for the Lightning's third tally in the game.  

I reasoned that `Bulin lost track of his position vis-a-vis the net behind him.  As drivers, we come to have a physical and mental sense for the car - that is, its dimensions, reach and position -  in relation to other cars and other things, such as the curb and garage.  But suppose we had been sick for a long time, and hadn't driven in the meantime: It would take a while to recover that sense of size and space.

So give the guy some reps on net.    

Sure enough, Quenneville deployed `Bulin for that game against the Senators on October 29th.  Our erstwhile goalie proceeded to have another brutal night, and Quenneville was prompted to take out the hook.  `Bulin gave up four goals in one and half periods of hockey.    

I don't know how he can get reps on net, if he poses a liability to the team, a quandary that he himself acknowledged:

Khabibulin thought confidence was a tricky quality for him to possess at this point.

“To have confidence, you have to play well,” Khabibulin said. “These last couple games I was in, I didn’t play that well. I have to build the confidence somehow through practices, treat it like a game, I guess. Go out and stop some shots, try to get better results.

“I think rhythm is a big part of it. I can say I want to go back out there to find rhythm. It’s not about me. It’s got to be what’s best for the team. The coach cannot just put me in, hey, go find your rhythm. We still have to win games. Whatever it is, if I don’t get to play much, just try to get better in practice.”

Reference: Hawks' Khabibulin: I have to do better.

`Bulin is veteran enough to understand what Quenneville has to do, or not do, in relation to him.  But again fans wanted him yanked off the team:

OK every1, who's in TOTAL & COMPLETE agreement with me that Rockford IceHogs goalie Antti Raanta should backup Crow the rest of the season?!?! +1 AND comment if u agree!!!

I weighed in:

Dude, I don't think Raanta is ready. He's playing well, so that's a good thing. But he'll need more than two months of North American hockey to develop into an NHL goalie. 

That said, the fact that Quenneville threw Crawford in there for a back-to-back [against the Jets this past Saturday, then against the Flames last night] may mean the Hawks are (a) trying to control the damage Bulin may cause and-or (b) buying time so Raanta can get as much development as possible. 

Hawks have a back-to-back every week (except one) for the rest of the year, so it's tough call for Coach Q!

I'm quietly rooting for `Bulin to do well.  In those few backup games he played last year for the Oilers, his numbers were decent: GAA 2.54 and SV% .923.  So he should be quite capable of playing much better than his current GAA 4.73 and SV% .818 over three starts.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD