Yeah, but he’s not elite, duh. 

You don’t need to win consistently or even play with better numbers than elite goaltenders at a small fraction of the price. 

The real story is with Brodeur, Lungo, and King Henrik.  No reporters are willing to hit the links with them though, because of their eliteness.

Posted by MarkK from Maryland on 05/21/09 at 06:27 AM ET

“You have to give (the Wings) their due,” said Chicago general manager Dale Tallon before Game 1, “that they’ve created a situation where they’re more than satisfied in not investing that much (salary-wise) at that position relative to others. It’s worked very well for them. Will it be copied elsewhere? We’ll see.”

This coming from a guy who has about 12 mil just between the pipes…probably the wrong guy to be commenting on getting a great goalie at a bargain price…wait, what non-entry level player is Tallon NOT overpaying?

Posted by Animal Drew from A Nightmare on Helm Street on 05/21/09 at 06:37 AM ET

Honestly, I’m not 100% sure Dale Tallon shouldn’t be canned.  The Huet/Khabibulin situation may be the largest contractual blunder in the NHL at present, and the misuse of that cap space may have cost the Hawks their best shot at a Cup this year.  Maybe with another 6 million dollars at forward or on D they’d stack up better with the Wings.

So, after this year the Hawks are going to do…. what?  Vertseeg and Barker are due raises, and the team will either have to ‘downgrade’ in net to their other 5+ million dollar goalie or they will have to re-up Khabibulin and try and dump Huet’s overpaying contract on someone.

The year after that Kane and Towes’ cap numbers will double.  Keith’s will probably triple.

Chicago had this year and next year of salary cap savings, and by screwing up the goalie position Tallon fubar’ed one of those years.

You just watch.  I’d almost guarantee that Tallon is going to get all jumpy trying to win one next year and he’ll end up giving someone who really doesn’t deserve it a long term deal at big money to fill the Havlat spot, which will really hose him up for 2010-11.  I can see this coming from a mile away.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 05/21/09 at 08:09 AM ET

Note to Drew, you don’t care what fans nor blogger think, so just STFU.

Posted by MOWingsfan19 on 05/21/09 at 08:24 AM ET

Note to Drew, you don’t care what fans nor blogger think, so just STFU.

It’s ok, MO… fans and bloggers don’t care what Drew Sharp thinks, either.

Posted by Incognetis from Delaware... Hi... I'm in... Delaware on 05/21/09 at 08:32 AM ET

The upcoming off-season (and the next one) are two huge off-seasons for the Hawks. If Tallon screws this upcoming one up, how can you keep him around?

Look, I know this team is farther than anyone thought they’d be a year or two ago, but does anyone really credit Tallon for it? He took two can’t-miss prospects with high first-round draft picks. The only nice deal he made was the deal that got ‘em Kris Versteeg.

The Campbell deal has been positive overall, but a horrible value. The Pahlsson deal looks to be a huge bust when you consider how average Pahlsson has been, and how stellar Wisniewski was in the first two rounds of the playoffs with the Ducks. Also, don’t forget Pahlsson is unrestricted at the end of the season, so Tallon very likely gave Wisniewski away. The Huet deal looks like a disaster because the Hawks probably want to bring Khabibulin back, but are essentially stuck letting him go and keeping Huet.

Those are just the obvious mistakes that Tallon has made in the past year. In the upcoming offseason, Tallon has to make the right moves in relation to:

- Havlat’s deal expires—does he want to stay? Do they want to keep him after he finally got through a whole season healthy? Probably not at $6 million per year again. Havlat’s injury history breaks in Tallon’s favor—there probably aren’t teams that would offer him $6 million again, so perhaps Tallon can get a palatable one or two-year deal for $4 - $5.5 million per.

- Barker, Bolland, Brouwer, Eager, and Versteeg are all RFA. Obviously, Versteeg is due for a big raise, and would draw lots of attention. Barker’s performance, especially in the playoffs with his new found power play acumen, deserves a big raise—they can afford to lose him, having given away Wisniewski. Eager isn’t worth bending over backwards for, but Bolland and Brouwer have been a huge part of the Hawks depth that has driven them to their success this season.

The good news is Tallon has a good amount of cap space to work with to get this stuff done. But based on his past mistakes, I wouldn’t have a lot of faith in him making the best choices. The goalie situation is the big one. Essentially, they just have to go with Huet and hope he regains the form he had in his best couple seasons in Montreal.

Posted by Nathan from the scoresheet! on 05/21/09 at 09:02 AM ET

Osgood, an elite goalie?

NO WAI!

Wait until TPSH gets wind of this startling new development!!

Posted by Alan from Atlanta on 05/21/09 at 09:10 AM ET

They had to overpay for Campbell to gain credibility, though - granted, they probably didn’t have to overpay that much, but they were going to have problems reagardless.  It reminds me a little of the Sheldon Souray contract with Edmonton - an overpay for a very good (when healthy) defenseman, but the ownership needed to make a splash and get someone- and Souray wanted to play for the Oilers, too.

And I wonder if they expected Pahlsson (sp?) to be better after he recovered - mono, I think? - from his illness.  That wasn’t a trade for the regular season, so they were likely thinking he would deliver in the playoffs since he has before.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 05/21/09 at 09:10 AM ET

Osgood, an elite goalie?

NO WAI!

Wait until TPSH gets wind of this startling new development!!

Posted by Alan from Atlanta on 05/21/09 at 10:10 AM ET

Seriously, this does raise a question - how exactly does one define an elite goaltender?

It could be based on regular season statistics, for example, but which ones?  Sometimes a goaltender has a lot of wins, but his save percentage and GAA are not as stellar.  Teams don’t get points for lower GAA, though, only for wins, so how important is that, really.  Then there is the system factor - if Detroit goaltenders get minuses because they play behind a talented team, then goaltenders for Minnesota and other strong defensive teams should also get minuses because the team play helps them as well.  Conversely, a goaltender that faces a million shots because his defensemen don’t actually pay much attention to their jobs should get extra credit in spite of a usually bad GAA and save percentage, but often don’t.

Or do you rate a goaltender as elite based only on playoff wins and Cups?  After all, that is the time when winning is most important and the games mean the most.

I think whether or not Osgood is an elite goaltender depends on the definition used.  In regular season, you can make an argument that he isn’t, although he is very solid and reliable.  In the playoffs, he certainly is an elite goaltender.  Regular-season-Osgood and Playoff-Osgood are two different creatures.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 05/21/09 at 09:18 AM ET

Anyone that pays Brian “I’d make that pass again!” Campbell $7 million per season deserves to be fired.  That’s theft!

Posted by TDeters on 05/21/09 at 09:18 AM ET

They had to overpay for Campbell to gain credibility, though

I don’t think gaining credibility with the ‘Crappy GM Club’ should have been their primary concern.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 05/21/09 at 09:32 AM ET

Maybe with another 6 million dollars at forward or on D they’d stack up better with the Wings.

That’s easy to say but much harder to do.  With that extra money, they don’t have Huet or they don’t have Khabibulin.

I mean, what do you do?  You have a goalie who you paid big money to who hasn’t had a winning season since he got there.  He’s in the last year of his contract and who knows what goalie’s going to be available next year?  So you sign another big name guy to hopefully replace him.

Sure, this year you’re carrying $13M in goal, but next year you drop the horrid contract of the losing goalie and you’ve got your new starter.  Bing bang boom.  How can you forecast that Huet’s going to lose his starting job to Khabibulin?  When you signed Huet you hoped you could trade or demote Khabibulin.  No matter what he said, you know that Tallon wasn’t PLANNING on having $13M in net.

That said, if you don’t sign Huet, and Khabibulin doesn’t almost get sent down, doesn’t get pushed to play better, doesn’t get challenged by Huet, maybe you have another big time losing season for Khaby as your starter.

So yeah, you’ve spent way too much in goal, but you’ve gotten to the conference finals…and maybe the finals…and maybe the Cup.

Do you trade the extra goalie money for a defenseman and maybe have Khabibulin suck it up again without another big name goalie to challenge him?

It’s easy to play armchair GM, but it’s a lot harder to actually do it.

Posted by Garth on 05/21/09 at 09:34 AM ET

That said, if you don’t sign Huet, and Khabibulin doesn’t almost get sent down, doesn’t get pushed to play better, doesn’t get challenged by Huet, maybe you have another big time losing season for Khaby as your starter.

So yeah, you’ve spent way too much in goal, but you’ve gotten to the conference finals…and maybe the finals…and maybe the Cup.

Do you trade the extra goalie money for a defenseman and maybe have Khabibulin suck it up again without another big name goalie to challenge him?

I don’t remember - did Khabibulin have a solid backup goaltender pushing him when he won a Cup with Tampa?

Maybe he is the kind of person who needs to be pushed - in which case, a team needs a solid (but not expensive) backup to make sure he performs well.  The problem is that a goaltender who is good enough to be a legitimate starter, but has an inexpensive contract, is likely to be snatched up by another team and installed as a starter instead of being available as a backup.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 05/21/09 at 09:50 AM ET

Maybe he is the kind of person who needs to be pushed - in which case, a team needs a solid (but not expensive) backup to make sure he performs well.

Well that’s the thing, who knows. 

On wikipedia, it says that his backup was John Grahame and whoever wrote the entry wrote this: Unlike his time in Phoenix, Khabibulin could enjoy extended rest when needed due to the skill of his backup, John Grahame.

I don’t know if Grahame pushed him or the fact that he wasn’t relied on to play 60+ games was why he was so good in the ‘03-04 playoffs.

This yeah, maybe it was Huet pushing him or maybe he’s just Alexander Mogilny, and he only performs in contract years, which would explain why this is his first good year since he won the cup (which was also a contract year).

Posted by Garth on 05/21/09 at 10:22 AM ET

FYI, Grahame is a goalie in the Hurricanes’ organization.

in 03/04 he played 29 games for Tampa bay, and went 18-9-1 with a .206 GAA and .913 Save%.  sounds like he was a solid backup, in fact his numbers are a little better than Khabi’s that year.

Posted by PaulinMiamiBeach on 05/21/09 at 12:02 PM ET