Searching for this season's Dan Ellis

by James Mirtle on Oct 29, 2008 1:33 PM CDT Comment 14 comments

Dan Ellis was one of the really great stories of last season, a 27-year-old career minor-league goaltender who came into the Predators' camp as the third stringer and by season's end walked away with the starting netminder's job.

The incumbent, Chris Mason, was shuttled out to St. Louis in the off-season, and just like that, an unheralded goalie who'd had only one NHL start prior to 2007-08 was one of the NHL's 30 starting goalies.

This time around, that could be Michael Leighton.

The Montreal Gazette's Dave Stubbs had a really nice story on the netminder yesterday, a tale of where his crazy hockey journey has taken him to this point. You can see it just looking at the transaction wire the last few years:

Oct. 4, 2005: Traded to Buffalo by Chicago for Milan Bartovic.

July 13, 2006: Signed as a free agent by Anaheim.

Nov. 27, 2006: Claimed on waivers by Nashville from Anaheim.

Jan. 11, 2007: Claimed on waivers by Philadelphia from Nashville.

Feb. 27, 2007: Claimed on waivers by Montreal from Philadelphia.

June 23, 2007: Traded to Carolina by Montreal for Carolina's 7th round choice (Scott Kishel) in 2007 Entry Draft.

Leighton's had more than Ellis's cup of coffee in the NHL — but not much more. Drafted in the sixth round by Chicago in 1999, Leighton had 50 NHL games to his name prior to this season, 34 of which came with an awful Blackhawks team in 2003-04.

His career record in the big leagues is 13-25-10, nothing to crow about, but he has a career .917 save percentage in the AHL, including a sparkling season last year with a bad team in Albany, where he posted a .931, was named the AHL goaltender of the year and earned the right to be Cam Ward's backup.

Previous winners of the AHL goalie of the year? Jason LaBarbera, Dany Sabourin, Ryan Miller, Dwayne Roloson, Martin Biron, Manny Legace and Felix Potvin.

In preseason, Leighton was miles better than Ward this season, and so far in the regular season he's picked up three starts and posted a sparkling .927 save percentage. The Hurricanes have needed better goaltending the past few seasons and Ward's starting job isn't quite as rock solid safe as some might think, especially not if there's a veteran backup winning his starts every time out.

Here's a look at the backups outplaying the starters in the league so far this season (minimum three games played):

Goalie	Team	GP	GS	W	L	OTL	GAA	SV%
Michael Leighton	CAR	3	3	2	1	0	2.29	0.927
Cam Ward	CAR	5	5	2	1	2	2.93	0.915

Nikolai Khabibulin	CHI	5	5	2	1	2	2.53	0.919
Cristobal Huet	CHI	4	4	1	2	1	2.72	0.894

Ty Conklin	DET	3	3	3	0	0	2.92	0.903
Chris Osgood	DET	6	6	4	1	1	3.13	0.884

Alex Auld	OTT	4	4	2	2	0	2.52	0.922
Martin Gerber	OTT	5	5	1	3	1	3.39	0.891

Antero Niittymaki	PHI	5	4	1	0	2	2.89	0.904
Martin Biron	PHI	6	5	2	3	1	3.95	0.868

Every year we see a starter lose his role, and Gerber seems like a prime candidate this time around. It's a funny position in that sometimes athletes can simply lose "it," something we've seen from everyone from Jim Carey to Roman Turek to Andrew Raycroft.

With teams scrimping on backup goaltending due to the salary cap, more guys like Leighton are going to get their shot — and some will even steal the spotlight for a while.

Like Dan Ellis.

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Comments

How’s Theo doing? We’re really missing him in Colorado.

26 Card Jet

by Tommelot on Oct 29, 2008 3:19 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

He and Johnson are both about even right now, both with relatively poor numbers. But Theodore’s played better lately.

by James Mirtle on Oct 29, 2008 3:34 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Don’t worry about that, it’s a fluke. He has periods where he’s really good at pretending to be a goaltender.

26 Card Jet

by Tommelot on Oct 29, 2008 4:33 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I love how Khabibulin is considered the backup. In this week’s The Hockey News, Costello rips Tallon for his off-season spending spree. He asks “Was Huet really that much of an improvement to pay $5.6m/year for 4 years with Khabibulin already signed for $6.75m this year?” To which I say, no… they think Huet is that much of a downgrade based on how much they gave him. :)

Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.

by saskhab on Oct 29, 2008 3:26 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Oh there’s no question Khabibulin was the backup coming in — but he’s played so well that they need to keep putting him in there. You wonder what happens if they deal him and Huet falters.

by James Mirtle on Oct 29, 2008 3:35 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I guess Antti Niemi becomes the new Nicklas Backstrom, then. :)

Chicago has always planned this more as a 50-55 for Huet and 30-35 for his backup type situation anyways. That’s not how they viewed it in 2005 when they signed Khabibulin… they expected Khabibulin to get in close to 65 starts a year, that’s why they paid him $6.75m a year back then when the cap was only $39m. They’re paying Huet $5.6m when the cap is $53m…. that’s a siginificant decrease in expectations.

Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.

by saskhab on Oct 29, 2008 3:52 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Huet has looked very shakey in the early goings

Blue and Gold (of Buffalo)

by Ebscer on Oct 29, 2008 10:55 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

There could be two former Blackhawk prospect underdog stories this season.

Leighton, as mentioned and Craig Anderson of the Panthers.

They both “fought” for a spot with the club since they both joined their old farm team in Norfolk. They were yo-yo’d. They were positioned as being the “future” goaltenders of the team, their Hacket and Belfour or even Hasek and Belfour.

Unfortunately, they were put in the fire while in front of them was a very suspect Chicago Defense.

02-03 Blackhawk Season
Anderson 0-3-2 4.00GAA .856S%
Leighton 2-3-2 2.82GAA .913S%

03-04 Blackhawk Season
Anderson 6-14-0 2.85 .905S%
Leighton 6-18-8 2.99 .900S%

They had some very good seasons in Norfolk, where Chicago has always had a descent talent pool hiding. Unfortunately, pre-lockout, a lot of them were left there to die or were traded because of impatience. We’ve only had a handful of guys actually play with Norfolk and develop there.

Proof?

Pre-Lockout Norfolk graduates:
Brett McLean – traded
Kent Huskins – ??
Tyler Arnson – traded
Shawn Thornton – traded
Steve McCarthy – traded
Vernon Fiddler – ??
Aaron Downey – ??
Travis Moen – ??
Mark Bell – traded
Kyle Calder – traded
Duncan Keith – STILL WITH THE TEAM!

Sorry for putting the Blackhawks spin on this, but I couldn’t help it.

Don't be afraid to take a few steps back, but you better keep moving forward.

by wlittle on Oct 29, 2008 3:51 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

To be fair, they wouldn’t have been thrown into the fire as much if Thibault hadn’t have gotten hurt significantly in both 2002-03 and 2003-04. The plan definitely was to ease them in, but that went out the window with Thibault’s injury problems.

A lot of that Chicago group of players you talk about didn’t make it because the high end guys didn’t pan out… Ruutu being the star of the group. Anton Babchuk was supposed to be a top d-man as well… in short, the high end guys didn’t push their way to the top and so they occupied the spots guys like Fiddler, Huskins, and McLean could’ve filled, but they wanted to give the Russians like Vorobiev and Igor Radulov the chances to become top 6 forwards.

Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.

by saskhab on Oct 29, 2008 4:05 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

trust me, i know that none of them worked out. babchuk, especially. voribiev is a story most hawk fans would like to forget, much like the wendel clark, theo fleury, tyler arnason, gilmour, krivokrasov, daze, zhamnov, cleary……. the list goes on and on.

Don't be afraid to take a few steps back, but you better keep moving forward.

by wlittle on Oct 30, 2008 8:24 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Anderson’s another goaltender who could definitely be a late-bloomer. He’s played very well for Florida, albeit sparingly.

by James Mirtle on Oct 29, 2008 4:10 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Stopped reading when I glanced over Tyler “Svatos can’t shoot better than me, so I don’t need to pass” Arnason.
His 5.6% shooting percentage last year is making me feel warm and happy all over. Much better than Svatos’ 18.6%.

26 Card Jet

by Tommelot on Oct 29, 2008 4:37 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I wasn’t saying those players should still be with the ‘hawks. What I was trying to say was Chicago’s system, from top to bottom, was suspect until Tallon took over. I’m not an advocate of Tallon, but he did change things in the farm system and how we bring them up through the big leagues.

Don't be afraid to take a few steps back, but you better keep moving forward.

by wlittle on Oct 29, 2008 4:40 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Fair enough. Colorado also isn’t known for their strong system. But I might hold a small grudge against Tallon for Tyler. It’s the biggest mistake Tony Granato has made this season.

26 Card Jet

by Tommelot on Oct 29, 2008 4:51 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs