Chip Shots: Red Wings Send Hawks Message: Your Goalies Suck

Chip Shots
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I'm Chip Ramsey a career broadcaster who has been a sports radio program director in Milwaukee and Nashville. I've covered everything from high school and college sports (including the SEC, Big Ten, MVC and OVC) to Major League Baseball, The NFL and the NHL. I have a few things to say, and when I want to say them, I say them here.

I mostly talk about my teams, which would be the White Sox, Bears, and Blackhawks, but I do talk about other things as well. Thanks for dropping by. I hope you will bookmark this site and visit often!

Chip's broadcast career

Chip Shots: Red Wings Send Hawks Message: Your Goalies Suck

Red Wings Send Hawks Message: Your Goalies Suck

Just when Chicago Blackhawks fans thought it was safe to think about Patrick Kane and Jonathan Towes skating around the U.C. with Lord Stanley's Cup, reality set in. The reality is, despite denials from anyone named Bowman and just about everybody in the Hawks organization, the Hawks goaltending leaves a lot to be desired.

The Hawks had a two goal lead going in the second period of a nationally televised game against Detroit. The same Detroit Red Wings which is holding on by their fingernails to be the eighth and final entrant for the Western Conference in the playoffs. The same Red Wings who have finally gotten all their injured players back, but suffered injuries to GWS poster boy Todd Bertuzzi and their best player Pavel Datsyuk during the game yesterday.

Yet these are the same Red Wings that turned Hawks starting goalie Cristobal Huet into a duck in a shooting gallery in the second period. After four quick goals, Huet was yanked form the proceedings and replaced by Antti Niemi. Niemi surrendered a goal to Datsyuk with 2.3 seconds left in the period, giving Detroit five second period goals. That goal, was the difference in the game as the Hawks lost 5-4.

Stan and Scotty Bowman can laud the goalies all they want, but the sad fact of the matter is these two guys are the not ready for prime time players. Huet has been a bust as a free agent and couldn't stop a beach ball. His positioning is awful and he stays down way too long. Niemi is young, raw and unproven and while he makes a solid backup, he certainly isn't ready to carry this team in the playoffs.

And this was against the Wings, who are not nearly as good as they were a couple of years ago. You don't think Alex the Great has drool all over his Capitol's sweater thinking about coming to Chicago next Sunday to face the two punching bags the Hawks put between the pipes.

Coach Qstache can berate the defensive positioning all he wants, but you'd have to be Stevie Wonder not to see that neither one of these guys is going to last deep into the playoffs. And the goalie ship has done sailed, leaving the Hawks with an open net. The Hawks may or may not have had an opportunity at acquiring a legitimate NHL goalie at the trading deadline but did not. That decision may cost them more than they ever could have imagined.