A MUST READ BOSTON GLOBE ARTICLE

Boston Globe
HOCKEY NOTES
Handled with tender care
Thomas has kept Bruins in good shape
By Kevin Paul Dupont November 25, 2007

The National Hockey League last week passed the one-quarter mark on the 2007-08 schedule, and to no one's surprise, the Senators and Red Wings had comfortable leads in their conferences.

But raise a hand high if you expected Martin Gerber, considered an overpriced free agent bust last season in Ottawa, to be the key to the Senators' fortunes. Meanwhile, Ray Emery, fresh from carrying them to the finals last spring, struggled to remain around. 500 with his few starts.

And raise the other hand higher if you felt Chris Osgood, and not Dominik Hasek, would be Detroit's No. 1 tender. As of yesterday morning, Osgood led the league with a miserly 1.65 goals-against average. Hasek stood a ho-hum 5-5-1 with a less-than-dominating 2.90 GAA.

What should this tell us? Maybe nothing other than what we remind ourselves of each year: When it comes to goaltending, it's neither crapshoot nor science, which renders it probably nothing more than an educated hunch. Today's hands-down NHL stopper can be tomorrow's ECHL backup. And if you have it in the back of your head that your 15-year-old is on a fast track to securing a scholarship as an NCAA Division 1 goaltender, you might want to come up with a Plan B. In a hurry. No position, perhaps in any sport, is subject to crueler bounces.

Which brings us to the interesting study this season in the Boston net. Over the summer, while management still had, shall we say, reservations about Tim Thomas, general manager Peter Chiarelli took on Manny Fernandez, and $9.25 million in salary, to erase any doubt about his goaltending. Thus far, the oft-injured Fernandez has seen action in all of four games, while Thomas has soldiered on as one of the league's steadiest hands.

Chiarelli pegged Fernandez to make 60-65 starts this season, which would have relegated Thomas to being the dutiful backup. Voila, Thomas is the workhorse, Fernandez (knee, back woes) can barely get out of the trainer's room, and top prospect Tuukka Rask logs more miles on Route 95, Providence-to-Boston, than a Wonder Bread delivery man.

What must the Bruins do now? Well, nothing, really, even though Chiarelli told the Globe Thursday that he might hunt for another partner to join Thomas if Fernandez were to remain sidelined.

For Rask to stay with Boston as a backup, Chiarelli feels, would not aid the Finnish phenom's development. And, of no small consequence, it also would burn a year off of the kid's entry-level contract. Rask's NHL cap hit is also huge ($2.55 million) for a rookie, which means it would be far more financially prudent to find, say, a $600,000 backup, and allow Rask the proper incubation time in Providence.

But the X factor here, frankly, is that the Bruins are winning, and they are doing so with a very slim margin. For the most part, that margin is: 1. goaltending and 2. Claude Julien's coaching.

For the few goals the team scored in the first quarter (51 in 20 games), it didn't have much business owning an 11-7-2 record. Even average netminding by Thomas would have had the Bruins in a struggle to be 9-9-2 (right where they were through 20 games last season). Less-than-average netminding by Thomas, and they're somewhere around 6-12-2, keeping company with the Capitals at the bottom of the barrel.

As for Julien, some of the defense-first style he preaches indeed suppresses the offense. But I'm not buying that half-full/half-empty argument as to why the Bruins struggle on offense. It allows too many underperforming forwards off the hook. The likes of Peter Schaefer and Brandon Bochenski have done next to nothing. Glen Murray finally seems to be emerging from his pea-soup fog, and that's encouraging, but he has to deliver in full as the club's sole would-be sniper. Marco Sturm and Chuck Kobasew have provided pop off the wings, and after Marc Savard, they've been the brightest lights in an otherwise very dull offense.

Julien, overall, has established a front-to-back defensive integrity that was never part of the team's character under Dave Lewis last season. Thomas has benefited by that, too, because he usually gets a good look at shots, and when he sees the puck, lo and behold, he usually stops it. That sounds fundamental, but bad D often clouds the evaluation of goalies. Which brings us back to that stuff about educated hunches.

Chances are, Fernandez gets his back straightened out and dials into a comfortable job share with Thomas. Meanwhile, Thomas remains on a roll and Rask looked impressive in his first start/win in Toronto. So, it wasn't the plan. Just as Gerber wasn't the plan. Just as Osgood wasn't.

Who knew? Why ask?

I say leave well enough alone. The coach is good, the goaltending even better. Wring a few more goals out of those forwards, bring in a fresh face (paging Vladimir Sobotka), and maybe, finally, the Bruins stop looking like forgotten orphans on our city's sports family tree.