Emery to start Thursday for Blackhawks
Guess the Blackhawks officially have a goalie controversy. Again.
Sun-Times beat reporter Adam Jahns recently tweeted that Ray Emery will get the start tomorrow night when the Hawks play at the New York Islanders. If Corey Crawford was coach Joel Quenneville's clear-cut starter, he'd certainly be in the net. The Hawks haven't played since Monday, and Crawford certainly should be rested since he was pulled early in the second period of that night's 4-3 shootout loss to Phoenix. He hasn't played a full game since last Friday, when the Hawks had to go to a shootout to beat the punchless Islanders 5-4.
I can't say this situation seemed improbable when the Hawks gave Crawford a three-year, $8 million extension to remain their starter this offseason. Crawford did a nice job for the Hawks after replacing Marty Turco last season, going 33-18-6 with a 2.30 GAA and a .917 save percentage. The Hawks almost had to keep him after that ... but he was still a 26-year-old that hadn't been considered much of a prospect. Chicago didn't even feel great about him being its backup at the beginning of last season. It's tough to progress from that profile to unquestioned starter for a Stanley Cup contender and stay there. Not impossible, but tough.
After an OK, not great, start to the season, Crawford has been steadily trending in the wrong direction. He's allowed three or more goals in nine of his last 12 starts. His save percentage is a very pedestrian .896 and his GAA has crept all the way up to 3.00. There have been plenty of defensive breakdowns in front of Crawford by a Blackhawks team that is giving up 3.15 goals a game, which ranks fourth-worst in the league, but Crawford hasn't made the big saves enough and has missed some routine ones.
Emery hasn't exactly taken the job and run with it. His 2.93 GAA is narrowly better than Crawford's, but his .890 save percentage is narrowly worse. In Emery's defense, his playing time was very minimal during the first month-plus — he basically only played one end of back-to-backs. Still, he made 11 saves without allowing a goal prior to the shootout in relief Monday and made 23 saves in a 5-2 defeat of the Blues Saturday night. I'm fine with him getting a chance.
Quenneville is, predictably, downplaying that there's a controversy. According to Daily Herald writer Tim Sassone's Twitter, Quenneville said, "I don't call this a goalie controversy at all. Every goalie not a starter gets a couple games in a row." OK, but those guys aren't always replacing "starters" with sub-.900 save percentages, nor are they always playing for a coach that replaced Cristobal Huet with Antti Niemi in 2009-10 and Turco with Crawford in 2010-11. I think the job, or at least more than an unequal share of it, is Emery's for the taking.
