Following a 14-season NHL career and a return to Russia, Anton Khudobin hung up his skates at the end of the 2023-24 season, retiring from professional hockey.
'Dobby' was a fan favourite, often showing himself to be very personable and likable when mic'd up or interviewed. Recently, the former Stars goaltender appeared on a Russian podcast where he was asked about the state of goaltending in the NHL.
Leading up to Khudobin's comments, one of the hosts spoke about how one of his colleagues was talking about how 15 years ago the NHL was filled with star netminders and nowadays it's hard to not want to pull your hair out watching goaltenders.
Khudobin spoke about how he was sent down to the AHL in 2015-16 with a .909 save percentage.
"Now I look, even in the NHL, out of the 32 starting goalies, at least 12 to 15 of them are sitting around an .880 save percentage," Khudobin said. "And I think that's a really weak number."
Throughout Khudobin's 260-game NHL career, the Kazakh-born Russian netminder was able to maintain a .916 save percentage.
Current Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger has been able to hold a .912 save percentage across his 251-game career so far in the NHL. However, the 26-year-old netminder did only have a .909 save percentage last season, tied for ninth best among NHl goaltenders who played 35 games.
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