With trade deadline gone, Hawks put their faith in Huet, Niemi
Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman has stood behind goaltenders Cristobal Huet and Antti Niemi all season. He did so again after Wednesday's trade deadline passed without him acquiring the goalie some believed the Hawks need to win the Stanley Cup.
"There wasn't anything there that really made a lot of sense to us," Bowman said.
So now it's up to Huet and Niemi to prove Bowman's faith in them is well placed. Huet never has won a playoff series while Niemi has yet to appear in a playoff game.
"I think our goaltending has been strong all year long," Bowman said. "I think on balance you've got to look at the whole season and it hasn't been a problem for us. You're going to have games here and there when it's not as good, and I think you're also going to have games when your defense struggles and you're going to have games when you don't score goals. But I think on balance you have to look at the whole season.
"We have confidence in our goaltenders. We're a team and we win as a team and lose at a team. I don't think it's fair to put it on one position."
Bowman didn't deny talking to other teams about trading for a goalie.
"We didn't target any one area," he said. "We're really happy with the group we have here. We've accomplished a lot so far. We have a long way to go to meet our goal, but we're really happy with our group so to just disrupt that at this point just to say you've made a trade, it wasn't going to happen."
The Hawks made no deals at the deadline, though they did trade for Anaheim defenseman Nick Boynton on Monday, and on Feb. 12 acquired defenseman Kim Johnsson from Minnesota.
"I'm very excited about (adding) depth on defense," Bowman said.
It now appears as if Hawks coach Joel Quenneville will give Huet every opportunity to establish himself as the clear-cut No. 1 goalie heading into the playoffs.
Huet started Wednesday against Edmonton for the first time since Feb. 5.
"They're both going to get a chance to play and we'll definitely be riding one guy for the playoffs," Quenneville said. "Huey is playing and he has a great chance to keep playing. Sometimes you reflect back and a guy (Niemi) gets hot and you might ride him, but certainly we look forward to Huey taking charge here."
Multiple sources claim Bowman inquired about the availability of Florida goalie Tomas Vokoun, who wound up staying put with the Panthers.
Bowman refused to discuss specifics of his trade talks with other general managers.
"I think it's a slippery slope to start saying we wanted this guy, we didn't want that guy," Bowman said. "But we wanted to do things that made sense for us. None of them made sense, so that's why we didn't make any more moves."
The Hawks entered Wednesday's game second in the NHL defensively and Bowman said you can't be that high in the statistics without good goaltending.
"I've been saying all along that I believe in these two," Bowman said. "They've gotten us to this point and we're doing quite well as a team.
"You don't reach this point by luck. You may get lucky for a few games or weeks, but you can't sustain that for a series of months to be where we're at in the standings. There's a reason we are where we are."