Feathered friends
The Hockey News
Cristobal Huet and Antti Niemi: That’s the answer to the oft-heard pre-season question, “Who the heck is going to stop pucks in Chicago?”
When Nikolai Khabibulin left the Hawks as a free agent, many wondered whether the team would get the kind of goaltending required to be a top-flight NHL outfit. Twenty-two games into the season, Chicago’s team goals-against average of 2.14 is tops in the league.
Huet is 11-4-1 with a 2.16 GAA, while Niemi has two shutouts in five starts, a 1.85 GAA and .921 save percentage. Now, all this comes with the understanding that the Hawks are a good enough team to be judged by what they do in the spring, not November, and it will be up to both goalies to prove they can thrive when things get a little tighter under the collar.
Chicago gets a good litmus test when it puts a seven-game winning streak on the line this Wednesday in San Jose in a showdown of the THN Power Rankings’ top two clubs.
RK. | TEAM | LW | OVERALL | L10 | THE SCOOP |
1 | 2 | 16-5-4 | 6-1-3 | Heatley is outscoring Cheechoo and Michalek 18-12 and leads the NHL in goals | |
2 | 5 | 15-5-2 | 8-1-1 | Chicago completes a sweep of western Canada to run its winning streak to seven games | |
3 | 3 | 13-5-5 | 5-3-2 | Blueline prospect John Carlson getting a look with the big club thanks to all the injuries | |
4 | 1 | 14-6-1 | 7-2-1 | Not sure there will be a better player on Team USA than Zach Parise | |
5 | 8 | 15-8-0 | 4-6-0 |
Don't discount the | |
6 | 9 | 12-7-1 | 7-3-0 | In what has to be a candidate for least likely fighting combatants of the year, Danny Briere and Marc-Edouard Vlasic squared off last Saturday in San Jose | |
7 | 6 | 13-6-2 | 6-3-1 | Began a stretch of eight-of-nine away from home with a victory over the Kings | |
8 | 7 | 11-6-4 | 7-2-1 | Another body joins a crowded infirmary as Niklas Kronwall is out four-to-eight weeks after Georges Laraque's knee-on-knee hit | |
9 | 13 | 13-9-2 | 5-5-0 | Failed to gain a point in their first two games without Ryan Smyth, who's out with an upper-body issue | |
10 | 18 | 12-6-3 | 6-1-3 | After Saturday's overtime loss, Jackets have lost 12 straight in Nashville. That's not the way to get the jump on a divisional foe | |
11 | 4 | 12-6-2 | 4-5-1 | Suddenly the Bruins and Sens are breathing down Buffalo's neck for the Northeast lead | |
12 | 17 | 10-8-4 | 4-3-3 | Having Marc Savard and Milan Lucic back means we can all finally see what's really up in Boston | |
13 | 14 | 12-8-1 | 8-2-0 | Nashville has gone from looking like a write-off to racking up 10 wins in its past 13 contests | |
14 | 16 | 11-6-3 | 5-4-1 | Shean Donovan is gone at least six-to-eight weeks after a knee-on-knee collision with Pittsburgh's Matt Cooke | |
15 | 12 | 13-7-3 | 3-6-1 | Giving up 21 goals over your past four games makes it real tough to win | |
16 | 11 | 10-6-6 | 4-4-2 | Some good signs, but still searching for consistency | |
17 | 21 | 13-9-1 | 4-5-1 | Good news on the injury front; blueliner Ed Jovanovski could return this week | |
18 | 19 | 9-5-7 | 5-2-3 | Antero Niittymaki runs his record to 15-0 versus Atlanta with a recent win over the Thrashers | |
19 | 10 | 10-7-3 | 5-3-2 | Life is pretty good for everyone in Atlanta except 22-year-old Bryan Little, who has just eight points in 18 games | |
20 | 15 | 12-11-0 | 5-5-0 | With Daniel Sedin back on the scene, the Canucks need to start making some hay | |
21 | 24 | 10-9-2 | 7-2-1 | Went out on the road and racked up three wins in a row over Detroit, Buffalo and the Rangers | |
22 | 20 | 11-10-1 | 3-7-0 | Scary to think where this team would be without Marian Gaborik | |
23 | 23 | 11-11-1 | 5-4-1 | Memo to GM Bob Gainey: sign pending UFA Tomas Plekanec right now | |
24 | 22 | 8-8-7 | 4-4-2 | Biron and Roloson both have respectable save percentages above .910 | |
25 | 27 | 8-8-4 | 3-4-3 | Long way to go, but Blues are starting to turn a corner as guys like Berglund and Kariya snap long goalless streaks | |
26 | 26 | 7-11-3 | 3-5-2 | Ryan Getzlaf's brother, Chris, will play for the Canadian Football League's Grey Cup next Sunday; not sure Ryan will get to play a game nearly that important this year if things don't turn around soon in Anaheim | |
27 | 25 | 8-12-2 | 5-3-2 | How about a minus-14 rating in 19 games for two-goal man Martin Havlat? Yikes. | |
28 | 30 | 5-12-5 | 3-5-2 | Not one road win in 10 tries this season | |
29 | 28 | 4-11-6 | 3-4-3 | Vesa Toskala trying to prove he can still be a starter | |
30 | 29 | 9-11-3 | 2-6-2 | Coach Pat Quinn held a meeting with team's vets to try and figure out how it's all gone so wrong |
The Hockey News ranks the teams 1-30 each Monday based on a combination of last week’s play and a squad’s overall outlook.
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