It takes just one bad game to start doubting a goalie
He’s so familiar as a Chicago Blackhawk that you forget that Corey Crawford is from Montreal. But then a reporter here at the Stanley Cup Final asks him a question in French, and he answers in kind, and you remember.
And then he talks about why he wanted to stop pucks with his body.
“I forget what age I was, maybe 8 or 9, I used to watch the Canadiens religiously when I was younger. I was a big fan of Patrick Roy, and I would say he’s pretty much the reason why I wanted to be a goaltender,” Crawford says.
Crawford goes on: “It was a pretty good idea when I was younger and then as you get older you start getting hit with harder shots and you’re thinking, ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ But, yeah, obviously it has worked out pretty good for me to have made that choice.”
He says he remembers going into his parents’ room one night asking them if he could play goal: “And they probably looked at each other like, ‘Oh no, please no.’”
This is, in his parents’ defence, absolutely the correct response. Of all the players on a hockey team, only the goaltender has a margin for error of next to nothing. Forwards and defencemen can have bad games, but the focus on what one of them did or did not do pales in comparison to goalie mistakes. And when it is a forward, like when Steven Stamkos wasn’t scoring in the first round, no one is calling for them to be benched entirely.
Have a bad game as a goalie, get yanked from the net. Have two, as Crawford did to begin the playoffs against Nashville, and get benched in favour of Scott Darling, who wasn’t even the No. 1 goalie on his AHL team this season.
Crawford seems to have the unpleasantness of the first round well behind him. And his counterpart in Tampa, Ben Bishop, a playoff rookie about whom there were many questions, has answered most of them, sort of. But this is the rare final series in which, if you caught each team’s fans in an honest moment, they would confess that their guy sometimes gives them the flop sweats.
In that series against Nashville, Crawford ceded the net to Darling for four starts, only returning to seal a series win in relief for Game 6. His numbers against the Predators: a 4.14 goals against average, and a winceinducing .850 save percentage. He has since posted a .947 save percentage against the Wild in the second round and a .920 save percentage in the conference final against the Ducks, which is right on his career average for 70 playoff starts. He progressed to the mean, if you will.
For Bishop, it hasn’t been a bad series followed by a good one, but a lot of excellent goaltending interspersed with occasional bouts where he resembles someone who has been shot up with anesthetics and has lost control of his limbs. He gave up four goals in a crucial Game 5 loss to Detroit in the first round, but then shut out the Red Wings in Game 7. He gave up three goals and was pulled in Game 4 against Montreal in the second round. And in the conference final he gave up five goals — twice — to the Rangers and then six goals before being yanked in Game 6. All he did to follow that up was blank the Rangers at Madison Square Garden in Game 7.
As much as Bishop’s 6-foot-7 frame can look as graceful as a drunk on roiling seas when things are not going well, he has beaten Carey Price and Henrik Lundqvist in consecutive series — both goalies who play with a calm, technical efficiency.
“It’s a boost of confidence” to beat those players, Bishop admits. “It’s a great honour to play against those guys and come out on top and move forward.”
Goalies always talk about the importance of having a short memory, of putting a bad game behind them. But it works the other way too: both Crawford and Bishop come into the final off strong performances, although it would just take one bad game to have the doubts renewed. Darling’s wobbles against Nashville saved Chicago coach Joel Quenneville from having to choose in the second round between him and the $6-million-a-year goalie he had previously benched. Had Darling clinched the series, it’s possible Crawford would still be wearing a ball cap and opening the bench door. And if Bishop surrenders a five-spot to the Blackhawks, it will surely be noted that Tampa coach Jon Cooper doesn’t have the time against an opponent as good as Chicago to let his goalie work out the kinks.
Bishop sounds like he is fine with that.
“You like that weight on your shoulders,” he says. “You like the pressure, but I think most of all you’re extremely competitive. There’s a lot riding on you.”
He’s quite right. Cue the fans, adjusting their collars.