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Nikolai Khabibulin is off to a slow start in the "Windy City".
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Don't count out Khabibulin
By Larry Wigge | NHL.com columnist
Nov. 16, 2005
There's no way around it. Hockey is all about goaltending.
Almost every team has a guy who can stop pucks pretty well, but it's the teams that have a goalie who can be a presence that can be there in the end.
Goaltending has become an art form. And being a presence means more than posting a .920 save percentage or five or more shutouts. It's not how many shots a goalie stops, it's when and how. Maybe more now than ever before, because of the new rules limiting where a goalie can play the puck and how big his equipment can -- or can't be -- in a game that has been screaming for more offense.
Nikolai Khabibulin is a goalie who fits the mold we've presented. He led the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Stanley Cup title in 2003-04, posting an impeccable 1.71 goals-against average, a .933 save percentage, with five shutouts, in 23 playoff games alone.
In a new world of hockey, where a salary cap prohibits teams from stockpiling high-priced talent, Khabibulin went from champion to the challenge of lifting the rebuilding Chicago Blackhawks on his shoulders this season.
"I remember when I was in Winnipeg and going into Chicago and feeling the tradition of playing against one of the Original Six teams in the NHL," he told me. "I liked the sales pitch (Blackhawks GM) Dale Tallon made. He seemed very sincere about putting together a good team. I liked that the Hawks had already signed Adrian Aucoin away from the Islanders and Martin Lapointe away from Boston. And I liked the idea of getting a chance to work with (Blackhawks consultant) Vladislav Tretiak.
"And I liked the challenge. Winning the Stanley Cup felt so good, I want to do it again. Why not Chicago?"
But Khabibulin is used to challenges. He's survived them all the life, from his youthful days when coaches told him there was only one way to play his position -- deep in the goal crease.
After a 4-8 start this season, following a start in which he played just 15 minutes and allowed four goals on just 18 shots of a loss at Dallas, "The Bulin Wall's" goals-against was near 4.00 and his save percentage was below .850.
"There were changes to the game and changes to the way each position is played and I was struggling," Khabibulin said after winning in Phoenix on Nov. 6 and in St. Louis on Nov. 10, his first two-game winning streak of the season. "I'm not one for excuses, but ..."
The changes in the NHL are not unlike baseball lowering the mound from 15 inches to 10 after Bob Gibson set a record with a mind-boggling 1.12 earned-run average in 1968. One year later, the collective American League batting average was up to .246 from .230. In the National League, averages went up from .243 to .250.
"It's not the equipment," Khabibulin said. "It's everything else that is different and takes time to get used to. You still have to stop the puck, but getting in position to see the puck and react quickly to deflections is an adventure, when there are so many more players in the line of fire now.
Khabibulin talks about adjusting to the "new" NHL
"It's not the equipment. It's everything else that is different and takes time to get used to. You still have to stop the puck, but getting in position to see the puck and react quickly to deflections is an adventure, when there are so many more players in the line of fire now."
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"With defensemen not being allowed to put their sticks on players in front of me, there are far more variables on how shots react before they get to the goaltenders."
Remember, goaltending is like an art form -- and goalies will adjust.
Goalies don't have to pass an IQ test or produce a high score on the SATs, but they have to be smart (even if they are standing in front of 100-mph shots that come at them from all angles and through screens). The good ones challenge some shooters and trick others by giving them an opening and taking it away. Some seem to have a book of shooters' tendencies in their heads.
Khabibulin? He knows the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence. He also knows he has the memories of winning a Stanley Cup. He can replay the playoff run over and over in his mind ... especially the final 12 minutes of Game 7 in the Finals, when the Calgary Flames, who were trailing 2-0, buzzed the Lightning net and got a goal by Craig Conroy and almost got another on a glorious scoring opportunity by Jordan Leopold with just over four minutes to play.
"No one can take that away from me," he said early this season. "No one can steal the thrill I felt standing in the town square in Minsk and the Bellarussian Palace of Sport with the Stanley Cup in front of all my family and friends.
"And no one can tell me I can't have dreams of doing it all over again ... in a different city, with a different team, just like Patrick Roy did, winning two more Stanley Cups in Denver after his first two in Montreal."
And just like Roy, there were detractors of Patrick's style and demeanor when he reached the NHL.
Khabibulin was a skinny, awkward, shy, backward and totally overwhelmed kid in a new lifestyle that didn't start and end with Russian as its first language back in 1995, when he played in his first NHL games with the Winnipeg Jets.
"They say first impressions can form a lasting view of the person you are evaluating," St. Louis Blues captain Dallas Drake told me recently. "If that theory was true in sports, I know I wouldn't be here today. But hockey scouts want to see a player over time, not just one glimpse and you're done. And that's good, because we would have missed out on some pretty good players through the years."
Drake came up with that bit of common sense thinking when I asked him for a then and now analysis of Khabibulin, the Blackhawks' new multi-million dollar man in goal, who joined a team that missed the playoffs six of the last seven seasons.
To their credit, the Blackhawks clearly identified the most dramatic problem as goaltending, and signing Khabibulin to a four-year, $27 million contract was easily one of the most dramatic free-agent signings in the summer.
"Nikky came to camp with us in Winnipeg in 1995 after playing a few games in the minors, a few games with the Jets, and he looked like a first-week cut at best," Drake recalled. "He was skinny, looked awkward and seemed lost unless someone came up to him and spoke Russian. His style of goaltending was wild and undisciplined. But ..."
There was a momentary pause and then a wide smile on Drake's face when he continued.
"After seeing him play in some meaningful games, everyone on the team could see there was something special about this kid," Drake added. "Nikky gave us a chance to win every night with his goaltending. He would make these acrobatic saves that would give the rest of us the confidence to go down the ice and score.
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It wasn't surprising to former Khabibulin teammate, Dallas Drake, to see the netminder backstop the Lightning to the Stanley Cup.
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"Watching him lead the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Stanley Cup in 2004 came as no surprise at all to me. We always hoped in Winnipeg and later in Phoenix that we'd see the same kind of celebration with Nik in goal."
The first impression subject came up after Khabibulin's ragged start and amid the great expectations for him in Chicago.
"I've never been predictable," Khabibulin laughed, recalling his early years. "We didn't have goaltending coaches in the Soviet Union, just the regular coach. You played goal his way, or else."
But Khabibulin was sort of a product of the video age. Yes, even growing up in the Soviet Union.
"About once a week, we'd get tapes of NHL games and whenever Patrick Roy played for Montreal, I watched ... and learned," Khabibulin told me. "I learned that I didn't have to be chained to the goalpost, that I could come out a little and challenge shooters -- even if Russian coaches told me to stay back in the net. I fooled them. I practiced coming out of the net when they weren't watching. And it made me better prepared to play in the NHL."
Now, the Blackhawks hope that at 32 Khabibulin is just peaking. After all, it was Nik's netminding that paved the way for the Stanley Cup into Florida for the first time.
So why would the defending champion Lightning let Khabibulin leave? It was a case of salary-cap roulette: Not enough money to bring back Khabibulin, plus young guns Vinny Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis and Brad Richards.
"When Nik Khabibulin came to this franchise he put the legs under the team," Lightning GM Jay Feaster said back in early August. "He gave us the opportunity to win day in and day out. Is it a setback? You bet it is."
Truth is, Khabibulin will get over his early problems like a lot of other quality netminders who have started slowly. Nik becomes a presence in goal, starting with a hybrid mix of butterfly and standup style. But it's his quickness that stands out, especially for a goalie who plays deep in his net, but he trusts his reflexes and his reaction.
Most important: He's confident in himself and his teammates will learn to be more than confident in him with the kind of momentum-turning saves that a great goalie can provide.
"I played behind Dominik Hasek in Buffalo and I don't think you can describe how confident a great goaltender can make you feel," said Blackhawks winger Matthew Barnaby. "You can go out and be more aggressive and not be concerned about leaving him in positions that you would be concerned leaving other goalies in.
"It's like a security blanket. There's always someone there -- in goal -- to be there for you if you want to take a chance at the other end of the rink."
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