Modern-day National Hockey League goaltenders have it too easy, according to Philadelphia General Manager Bob Clarke.
“It’s not like our goalies are facing 40 shots a game,” Clarke said. “We’ve got to resist the thinking that they get tired.
“Our players, skaters, play that many games, play back-to-back, and they don’t get tired. Why should the goalie be any different?
“I like that [New Jersey’s] Martin Brodeur and [Colorado’s] Patrick Roy play 70 games a year.”
Blackhawks coach Alpo Suhonen smiled when informed of Clarke’s remarks.
“If you are a goalie for New Jersey or Colorado, you can play 82 games,” he said. “If you are a goalie for the New York Islanders, you can’t. You can’t have that much pressure on you night after night.”
Suhonen also believes it’s important to keep a goaltender in the lineup when he’s hot. Exhibit A: Jocelyn Thibault.
If Thibault is in goal Thursday night when the Hawks play the Flyers after a three-day break in the schedule, it will be his 18th straight game and 29th in the team’s last 31 outings.
During that span Thibault has played in back-to-back games only once, and that was in mid-November in Calgary and Edmonton.
But in the next four weeks the Hawks will have four back-to-back games, starting this week with the Philadelphia game that will be followed by a Friday night game in Colorado against the top team in the overall standings.
Because of the short interlude in the schedule, Thibault hopes to play both Thursday and Friday. But he says the mental strain of playing all those games in December and January may have taken a toll in Sunday’s 4-0 loss to Pittsburgh.
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“Physically, you might feel fine,” he said. “It’s mentally. Sometimes you might be a split-second late. To be a little fresher and more excited to play makes a big difference.”
In the market: Even though Garth Snow played an outstanding game in stopping 24 shots and shutting out the Hawks, Pittsburgh GM Craig Patrick is shopping for a goaltender. Mario Lemieux’s return has given the Penguins one of the NHL’s most potent lineups, but to become a legitimate Stanley Cup contender they need to improve their goaltending and defense.
Two of the Western Conference teams the Hawks are trying to overtake to reach the playoffs have serious goaltending problems they’re trying to solve before the March 13 trading deadline.
There aren’t that many goalies available. The four most often mentioned are Nikolai Khabibulin of Phoenix, who has been a holdout since the end of the 1998-99 season, Buffalo’s Domink Hasek, San Jose’s Steve Shields and Montreal’s Jeff Hackett.
When new owners Steve Ellman and Wayne Gretzky take over the Coyotes, they probably will sign or trade Khabibulin, but it’s doubtful they would send him to division rival Vancouver. The same is true of Shields, who has become expendable because of the play of Sharks rookie Evgeni Nabokov and their sensational farmhand Mikka Kiprusoff.
Hasek and Hackett are in the Eastern Conference, but their ages, salaries and injuries make them a gamble for Vancouver.
Big hurts: St. Louis and San Jose were the second- and third-place teams in the Western Conference going into Monday’s games. Both are trying to cope with the loss of very important players. The Blues’ reigning NHL Most Valuable Player, defenseman Chris Pronger, is scheduled to have surgery Tuesday to repair torn cartilage in his left knee and will be out from four to six weeks. The Sharks’ top scorer, center Vincent Damphousse, has a dislocated left shoulder that’s expected to keep him on the injured list until April.
San Jose might make a pitch for Carolina’s veteran center Rod Brind’Amour in an attempt to fill the void.
Damphousse has nine goals, 37 assists and a plus/minus rating of plus-17 in 44 games. Pronger has six goals, 35 assists and a plus-18 rating in 45 games.
Pronger played nine games after tearing the cartilage in a Jan. 4 game against Nashville, and continued to be an impact player. But the knee bothered him, and a MRI exam Friday revealed the extent of the damage.
“It’s something we need to take care of now before it becomes a problem,” Pronger said. “You don’t want it to become a problem in the playoffs where everything counts.”