Is Game 5 start in the Stars for Kari Lehtonen?
ST. LOUIS — It's unusual for a team midway through the second round of a playoff series to still have a goalie controversy. But the Dallas Stars aren’t afraid to break with convention.
Throughout the regular season, the Western Conference champions alternated between Kari Lehtonen and Antti Neimi. Lehtonen had a 25-10-2 record and Neimi was 25-13-7. Similar numbers for a goaltending tandem where one player seemed to inexplicably perform better when the other was playing worse, making it nearly impossible to name a true starter.
While it may not have been by design, Stars head coach Lindy Ruff is facing a new decision about his netminder in each playoff game. Niemi is 1-3 in the playoffs while Lehtonen is 5-1-0. Yet it was Lehtonen who started Game 2 in this series against the St. Louis Blues but was pulled in favor of Niemi in a 4-3 overtime loss for Dallas. Niemi started Game 3, and was pulled in favor of Lehtonen in a 6-1 road loss. Lehtonen got the call in the Stars' most critical start to date — a 3-2 overtime win on Thursday.
Despite Lehtonen's play in a critical game, Ruff was not ready to name a starter for Game 5 on Saturday in Dallas.
“Now we have a decision to make next game, with these two goalies,” he said Thursday night, revealing little perhaps out of gamesmanship as much as uncertainty.
But the issue stretches further than just Ruff’s desire not to say too much. Niemi was brought to the Stars via a trade with the San Jose Sharks last summer. Lehtonen, 32, was coming off a 34-17-10 season in which Dallas didn’t make the playoffs, so having a serviceable back-up who could push him made sense.
But the Stars recorded a 2.78 goals-against average in the regular season because neither netminder fully established a groove. Which is how they ended up tag-teaming in the playoffs, not that their captain is interested in discussing the semantics of the situation.
“It was huge,” Jamie Benn said of Lehtonen back-stopping them in Game 4. “That’s Kari Lehtonen. That's the Kari that we know. You guys can pick apart our goalie all you want, but we believe in him and he showed what he can do tonight.”
Benn likely would have said the same about Neimi had he been in the crease, but Lehtonen has been the better of the two netminders since the playoffs began. In the first round against the Minnesota Wild, the defensive struggles that plagued Dallas all season reared their head to open up scoring chances for Minnesota. As the Stars face down even tougher opponents, the task in defeating them only becomes taller.
“We’ve dealt with this all season long. We have two goaltenders that are capable of playing,” Stars forward Patrick Sharp said. “As players in front of them, we know we’re going to get a good effort back there. I know it was ugly for a lot of guys and the team in general in Game 3, but credit the team, we were able to put it behind us and play a better game (Thursday)."
Whether they choose to say so publicly or not, starting Lehtonen in a critical Game 4 — on the road with the possibility of going down 3-1 in the series — says a lot about the trust the organization has in him. And shows why the Stars’ goalie crease still appears to be his to lose.
“I think Kari stepped up to the plate (Thursday) and brought us a great game,” Sharp said. “He made some big saves in there. It was definitely huge for this hockey club.”
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