V interesting article from Knobler. Interesting because it's the first "media admittance" that one of our goalies could well play their last in Blueland. Tomorrow night's game is probably going to be hella interesting, and Lehts is slated for the start. Guess we'll see what we see, eh? And once again, the article's edited down. Check AJC for the full article. And sorry no photos up yet from last night. I've been up to my eyebrows in my car's engine all day. I'll post them sometime soon though.
Buffalo, N.Y. — Johan Hedberg was playing for his job Friday night, and it wasn’t going well. The Buffalo Sabres had scored four goals on him through two periods. He might have been headed for his third loss in as many starts. Teammate Niclas Havelid skated over to him after the fourth goal, tapped a stick on his pads and told him to keep going. And Hedberg did.
“I’ve been chasing this feeling for a long time now,” Hedberg said. “It’s been a hard time. Hopefully, this is something that I can build off and the team can build off, and we all can take strides and get better.”
Hedberg entered the game with the lowest save percentage and the highest goals-allowed average among the NHL’s 67 goalies. He was on the verge of getting squeezed in a numbers game between soon-to-return No. 1 goalie Kari Lehtonen and up-and-coming youngster Ondrej Pavelec. NHL teams don’t keep three goalies on the roster.
No one had to tell Hedberg that his eighth NHL season might have been heading for an abrupt end.
“I’m not blind. I’m not stupid. You have to realize the situation you’re in,” he said. “At the same time, you can’t think about it, either. I want to come out, and I want to play hockey the way I can. I haven’t done that for a long time. Tonight, I started getting that feeling back a little bit, and hopefully it’s going to be something that’s a trend.”
Did Hedberg do enough to keep his roster spot?
“Yes, absolutely,” Thrashers coach John Anderson said.
No comments:
Post a Comment