Which Hawks' goalie will grab top spot?
There is little precedent for teams alternating goalies in the playoffs, which is no doubt why Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville has stated on more than one occasion in the last few weeks that he'd like to see either Nikolai Khabibulin or Cristobal Huet assert himself as the No. 1 guy down the stretch.
Quenneville has gone with a strict alternating rotation since the middle of December, which continues tonight when Khabibulin starts in Atlanta against the Thrashers.
Khabibulin and Huet know what lies ahead in terms of what Quenneville would prefer to do, and both say all they can keep doing is play well whenever it's their turn.
"Definitely in the playoffs I don't think he's going to alternate, but you're going to have to ask him," Huet said Tuesday. "It's the same thing for us. There's nothing we can do except try to play well. If you want to help yourself you play well."
In the 1996 playoffs, Red Wings coach Scotty Bowman alternated Mike Vernon and Chris Osgood somewhat in the first two rounds. Bowman used Osgood in home games and Vernon on the road before finally settling on Osgood in the conference finals, which Detroit lost to Colorado.
Philadelphia Flyers coach Terry Murray alternated Garth Snow and Ron Hextall in the 1997 playoffs, using Snow 12 times and Hextall eight in reaching the Finals.
In Edmonton in the 1980s, coach Glen Sather would alternate Grant Fuhr and Andy Moog during the regular season but always went with Fuhr, the future Hall of Famer, in the playoffs.
Recently there have been teams that started the playoffs with one goalie and finished with another.
Carolina started the 2006 playoffs with Martin Gerber in goal but turned to Cam Ward after two games and won the Stanley Cup. Last spring in Detroit, Dominik Hasek started the first four games in the first round against Nashville and struggled. He was replaced by Osgood midway through Game 4 and the Wings went on to win the Cup.
"History shows it doesn't occur a lot," Quenneville said of alternating goalies in the playoffs. "But I think some teams have gone in it and started with a rotation and somebody emerges as the guy, where they've just changed goalies and the other guy got the ball and went on to win Cups."
Quenneville hasn't backed off his desire to determine a No. 1 goalie.
"If it's clear we'll move to that next step," Quenneville said. "We'll see what happens as we go along here, but we didn't say it just to say it.
"If one guy emerges as the guy, I think we have to give him the opportunity. I won't say we have to go that way, and if they both deserve to play that will be an easy decision as well."
Khabibulin won a Stanley Cup with Tampa Bay in 2004, and it was down the stretch that season when he became dominant in net. Can it happen that way again?
"There it was kind of weird," Khabibulin said, remembering that season in Tampa playing for coach John Tortorella with John Grahame as the other goalie. "I think I played 55 games or so that season, but it wasn't alternating.
"You'd play for seven or eight then the coach would get unhappy and sit you down for four or five. There was no system as far as who was playing.
"This way at least you get some kind of rhythm. I've never been in a situation like this when you play every other game."
Khabibulin and Huet have made no secret of their desire to play more. So far Khabibulin has made 26 starts and Huet 25.
"Each of us wants to play more, but it is what it is and whenever we go out there we try to do our best." Khabibulin said. "I've always prepared myself in a season to play 60-65 games.
"I feel the same this year other than the fact there's more time to work on things in practice. I'm trying to find the positives in the situation, and that's one of the positives."
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