St Louis Blues’ star netminders Brian Elliott and Jaroslav Halak on NHL record-breaking spree-NHL News
In the final push for the playoffs this season, a number of teams are struggling to maintain healthy and fit goaltenders, yet St Louis Blues find themselves in the odd-defying position of having not one but two best performing netminders on the active roster.
Brian Elliott and Jaroslav Halak are ranked at first and fourth position respectively on the National Hockey League (NHL) ranking table with the respective averages of 1.63 and 1.94 goals-against.
Both the players have kept the net on rotation basis and equally impressed the spectators through their form and performance.
Blues started the season with Halak, but unfortunately the player struggled to find the form.
This gave a chance to Elliott and the player immediately proved his worth. He has come back rather strongly since replacement of coach, Davis Payne, with the new official, Ken Hitchcock.
Elliott led the team into the past weekend while being at the top of goaltenders’ list on the league, whereas Halak was ranked fourth.
It is very rare for a side to have two leading netminders at the same time and both proving their skills whenever they get opportunities.
They are the only players from Blues to lead the team to 20 wins respectively in the same season and only second in the NHL to achieve the feat after Nikolai Khabibulin (with 25 wins) and Cristobal Huet (with 20 victories) did it for the Chicago Blackhawks
in the 2008-2009 NHL season.
Both of them also have six shutouts each to their credit, which is also a NHL record.
They will certainly be looking to improve the record as still they have almost a quarter left in the regular season.
A number of teams are reported to have been in the injury scares to their goaltenders such as Ottawa Senators, and are struggling in finding right replacements especially after expiry of the trade market season.
Minnesota Wild is the other team that reported on March 01, 2012 that their netminder, Niklas Backstrom, will be out of the side for most of the remaining NHL season due to a groin injury.
He may not be able to play for the side this season at all, especially if he takes more than a month to recover.
The team, in the meantime, is finding it difficult to bring in a right replacement and is relying on a player from its affiliate in the minor league to protect the net.
Yet Blues are fortunate to have both goalies fit and performing at their best.
This leaves the team with the opportunity to benefit from the two star goaltenders game skills and boost their playoffs chances and hopes. More achievements are expected to be earned by the players.
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