Blackhawks Year End Reviews: The Goaltenders

We wrap up the player grades from the 2017-18 season with the goaltenders. Obviously, I could go on and on because it is my (self proclaimed) area of expertise.

This season has been the most contentious one in the Blackhawks net, since the great goalie debate of 2010 when an unknown summer free agent signee and former Zamboni driver from Finland was forced to take over for the extremely unreliable Cristobal Huet. That situation turned out really well; for Antti Niemi and the Blackhawks.

Cristobal Huet was banished to Switzerland, never to be heard from again and has since retired to become a goaltending coach.

There have obviously been questionable periods for the position in the last eight years, or so, but never a season long trudge.

No matter what the meatball collective will shout at you through the wrappers of their I-talian Beef sammiches, Scott Darling and Ray Emery were never ready for prime time in Chicago. Antti Raanta was probably the closest but Stan Bowman wanted to go cheaper with his backup and rightfully so.

Notice how I said BACKUP. This does not take anything away from what Raanta has done in Chicago, New York or (now) Arizona, but he is still not Corey Crawford or Henrik Lundqvist.

The subject at hand, however, are the surprising cast of characters that found themselves in the Blackhawks goal crease this season. Surprising might be a nice way of describing this cast of question marks but one thing is clear; the Blackhawks need to reassess this list going into this next season.

As I said with the defense, Bowman can blow all kinds of smoke up our behinds, but the back end of this team needs to be far deeper and much better next September.

On to “da gradez, my frent”:

Jeff Glass (D+) – Jeff Glass was a great public relations story. That is all.

With all of the national and local media fawning over Glass, he was just an organizational tool used to mask the actual problems. It worked, too. While all these in depth pieces were being written about the struggles he overcame to make it to the NHL, fans were being brainwashed and misdirected.

Jeff Glass was just a marginal AHL backup that was leftover from the expansion draft. The only reason he was actually in the NHL was that JF Berube was seriously injured right before Corey Crawford hit injured reserve himself.  The Blackhawks just had had no other options. Once Berube recovered, the Blackhawks did what they originally intended to do, which is send Glass back to Rockford and recall Berube.

Much like the Scott Foster story, which I will touch on later, Glass played well above his head for a short period of time. His brief time in the spotlight gave the public a perception that he was something much more than he actually really was. The Blackhawks rode his public relations wave as long as they could, like a champion bull rider, and then it was back to the regularly scheduled program.

As far as his statistics go, Glass actually had a below average month of January, for an NHL goaltender, and the rest was just painfully bad. In January (if you count his two games in December as well), he posted a 3-3-2 record with a 3.15 GAA and a .910 save percentage.  In fact, in every statistical category, Jeff Glass was far below the league average.

Once February hit, the old, rusty, late model Cutlas Supreme ran out of gas. During that month, Glass went 0-3-1 with 3.61 GAA and .872 save percentage. If any other goalie, save for a 32 year old rookie public relations “darling”, had these numbers, the fan base would have rioted and burned them at the stake.

This is another example of what I like to call “The Darling Effect”. The #DarlingEffect is similar to the Mandella effect, where the perception of said person does not meet the actual facts. The favorite perception of Darling was that he saved the Blackhawks in the 2015 playoffs (which he certainly had a hand in; to a degree).  The fact, though, is that Corey Crawford came back and eventually bailed them out in game six after Darling gave up three goals on just 12 shots.

With Glass, the fans will remember what he heroic effort he put in (to a degree he did), but he was just slightly better than the Chinese fire-drill going on around him.

“A” for effort, “D+” for actual production, and a footnote in Blackhawks history right next to The Accountant Scott Foster and American Hero Ray Leblanc.

 

Jean-Francois Berube (C-) – I was pretty hopeful for Berube when the season began. I thought he could have really been one of those sneaky (under the radar) signings. As it turned out, the season did not end up that way for the Vegas Golden Knights legend and summer free agent signee. This result may or may not have had something to do with the knee injury he suffered in early December, but it certainly could not have helped his production. The fact that he did not even report back to Rockford, and was sent home after the Blackhawks season ended, might indicate that he was still feeling the effects of his injury.

Berube was having an excellent year in Rockford when he was bumped into in early December and injured his knee. His misfortune was Collin Delia’s reward, so I am not complaining, but Berube came off injured reserve and almost immediately got thrown to the wolves like a piece of raw meat.

If you look at his stats, he was having a solid start to his season in Rockford (7-6-0, .918, 2.42 GAA, 2 SO). Once he returned, following an almost  two month stint on injured reserve, he only played two warmup losses (0-2-0, .934, 2.07 GAA) in Rockford before being recalled to the Blackhawks in early February.

That went about as well as you might expect, playing behind a team that was basically out of the playoff race, and getting worse by the day. BADLY. When you throw a goalie out on the ice who has played two games in two months to face 36 shots a night, you might be playing with fire.

I know, thanks Jeff Foxworthy…

Anton Forsberg (C-) – I have to be honest, I am more undecided about Anton Forsberg than I was when the Stan Bowman acquired him last summer, as a throw in to the Saad/Panarin deal. I have always been skeptical of players jumping teams, much less leagues, and I am especially critical of goalies. Goalies are especially fickle individuals, much like lead signers in bands.  A vast majority are very loyal to their routines, position coaches, and the styles in front of them. When you upset the routine or the atmosphere, you might get some funky results.

Not only did Forsberg switch organizations, but he was also moving from the AHL to the NHL. He had a lot of success in the AHL but was very underwhelming in his few NHL minutes with the Blue Jackets organization. As a result, I was pretty skeptical.

As training camp unfolded, Forsberg was (maybe) the only solid goaltender in Blackhawks camp, and (rightfully) earned the backup job. That was where the success ended.

From the open of the regular season until Christmas he started eight games, winning just one of them. Granted he lost his first two games in overtime, but he was 1-4-3 when Corey Crawford went down.

As a result, Forsberg was never able to nail down the starting job, despite being given plenty of opportunities. This was while facing the lowest average shots per/60 against for all Blackhawks goalies (32.2).

All that said, I do not place all the blame on Forsberg. Joel Quenneville and the Blackhawks coaching staff really seem to love to scramble the brains of young goalies. He was thrown into (what seemed to be) the starting position and almost immediately the staff starts with the “Jeff Glass Experience.” Stories were being written, mini documentaries were being made, and Anton Forsberg was left looking over his shoulder following every borderline goal against.

This was a 25 year old kid who had played a grand total of 10 games and 494 NHL minutes over three seasons.

How do you instill confidence in your (now) supposed starting goalie, when the first thing you do to him is march a 32 year old AHL backup out and throw him in net? Jeff Glass should have never touched the ice, unless it was a relief situation or a back-to-back. That is how 90% of teams treat 3rd string goalies.

Not Joel Quenneville.

I would not compare Anton Forsberg to any current NHL starter but I would certainly put him right in the middle of NHL backups. One full game after Corey Crawford gets put on the shelf the Blackhawks coaching staff stuck it right up Forsberg’s behind. He was given one stinking game before the rug was pulled out from under him.

I really honestly believe that the Blackhawks mismanagement of their goalies has broken Anton Forsberg’s psyche. They better than a contingency plan going into next season, because both Forsberg and Berube leave nothing but enormous question marks.

Then they are down to my next contestant…

Collin Delia (Incomplete) – If you have not figured this out by now, I have become a bit of a Delia super fan. I sang his praises two summers ago, at Blackhawks prospect camp, and again last year. The Blackhawks were impressed enough to sign the free agent to an entry level deal, and his NHL journey began.

As this preseason began, he backstopped the Blackhawks prospects to the championship at the Traverse City prospect tournament (coached by Rockford head coach Jeremy Colliton) but, with Berube and Glass in Rockford already, the 23 year old California native was sent to Indy to train with the Blackhawks ECHL affiliate.

Delia toughed out a really complex training schedule, practicing with Rockford all week and then making the trip to Indy to play with the Fuel on weekends. Obviously this is a recipe for upsetting a goalies previously mentioned routine, which probably added to the kid struggling in Indy. Not only was he not used to playing behind these players (whom he was not practicing with on off-days during the week), but those players were not used to him. He hung in and stayed positive.

In early December, when Berube and Crawford went on the shelf, Delia was recalled to Rockford and never left. He started one AHL game previous to his recall and it certainly took a few games for him to get his feet wet.

Once he settled in with the Icehogs, there was little doubt who was taking them to the playoffs. He earned AHL player of the week in early March, and was eventually named 2017-18 Icehogs IOA/American Specialty AHL Man Of The Year.

Of course, this is all AHL and ECHL we are talking about, but Delia’s hot February and March earned him a late season NHL call-up. That call-up resulted in his first NHL win, first NHL loss, and first NHL injury replacement.

We will speak a little more on that later.

The reason I gave him an incomplete is because two games is not a fair period of time to assess his NHL play. In those two game, though, he played pretty well. Before leaving with cramps late in the infamous “Scott Foster Escapade” Delia was beating the Winnipeg Jets after giving up only two goals against.

This was after getting a thorough “rookie initiation” that morning in practice.

Joel Quenneville gave him the start the very next night in Denver, but the team around the young goalie was just completely flat, following the highly emotional win the night before. Delia, however, still made 31 saves on 36 shots.

I could joke and boast that Delia is a shoe-in for the backup position next season but, honestly, no one knows. He showed unshakable confidence, the ability to persevere and, of course, natural ability. His journey with the Icehogs in this year’s AHL Calder Cup playoffs will only benefit him, as well.

Clearly, I am pulling for this kid after personally following his journey from Merrimack College to the NHL.  This would not be the first time a player has made a similar leap. For now, though, we should all take this one step at a time.

Corey Crawford (A) – The curious case of Corey Crawford. Other than a few select people in the organization and Corey Crawford himself, no one truly knows what is going on with him. Rumors have been alluded to and this is not the place to speculate, but one thing is clear, Corey Crawford is vitally important to this organization.

I have long been of the opinion that Crawford was under rated and was not just simply a marginal goalie behind a stacked team. This season was “exhibit A” to support that theory.

When Crawford went down, he was having arguably the best statistical season of his career and was carrying the Blackhawks on his back. His overall save percentage was the best it had ever been (.929), and his 5v5 save percentage was .935. Once he went down for good the Blackhawks circled the toilet bowl and were never seriously heard from again.

If the Blackhawks are going to return to cup contention, they will need Corey Crawford, first and foremost. The fact that he is going to be 34 this season should also be of concern, though. The organization has done a fairly poor (to terrible) job of developing goalies, and there needs to be some light at the end of the tunnel. Players like Delia, Forsberg, and even Wouter Peeters might eventually be the answer to the Hawks goaltending puzzle, but that would all be conjecture at this point in time.

Scott Foster (A+) – A 2017-18 Blackhawks goalie review would not be complete without the story of “The Accountant.” For almost three quarters of an NHL third period, Scott Foster lived every beer leaguer’s dream. Not only did he live the dream, but he did so in absolute boss fashion.

The Blackhawks emergency backup was called into action when starter Anton Forsberg was injured in warm-ups on March 29th. Collin Delia was pushed into the starter’s role and Foster was forced into the backup role for the evening which required him to sign an amateur tryout contract with the team. This could have all ended peacefully and without incident but, as I mentioned earlier, Delia cramped up in the third period and need to be helped off the ice.

In steps the 30-something beer league accountant from Johnny’s Icehouse. Now, by pulling off this stunt in boss fashion, I mean this:

• Wearing his Johnny Cash style, Vaughn, outlaw looking black pads and AC/DC rock and roll themed mask
• Stepping in and facing seven Winnipeg Jets shots, some of which were not easy stops. No one would have faulted the guy for giving up a goal or two. Most fans will never realize just how difficult it is to put up 14 minutes of shutout hockey against one of the league’s best teams.
• Getting named the game’s first star.
• Conducting several post game charming and sometimes hunorous interviews.
• And perhaps the most respectable part of all, fading into the sunset without trying to milk the unique circumstance for every second of his 15 minutes of fame.  He pulled the George Costanza move, and it was amazing.

If you were to write a book or movie based on the events, you would have created a character exactly like Foster. He is the “Rudy” of the Blackhawks. For all of these reasons, I salute you, Scott Foster.

You are one hell of a guy and fellow goaltender!

Unfortunately, Foster’s debut and game completely overshadowed Collin Delia’s first NHL game and win as well as Brent Seabrook’s 1000th NHL game, but that is no fault of Foster’s. In the grand scheme, there is a bright future for Delia, so we can all hope there will be many more NHL wins for him to celebrate.

His first one, though, went straight to his accountant…