Good call, I forgot about the shoulder injury. Another thing about it was the simple fact that people hated Hoss because they felt he had zero loyalty -- since he jumped from Pittsburgh to Detroit when he lost out on those Cups.
Yeah, there were a lot of people on him for solely chasing the cup.
I'm as big of a Hoss fan as you'll find, but when he went from Pit to Det I was pretty pissed about it. As soon as he was traded for, I couldn't wait to see him as a Hawk. I loved his play back in Ottawa and Atl.
His switch to a more defensive forward on the Hawks was awesome to see unfold. I think his relentless backchecking still shows on this team. As a mid 30 year old racing back as hard as he did must have made many younger players think "if this old guy can do that, I damn well better do it too".
Yeah, except the only one on the 'hawks who was close to being as good as he was at it was Toews and only when he won the Selke. I think when he was playing you could see the wheels churning in guys' heads like Saad...but I think that 3-zone play just evaporated after 2017.
Some have made comparisons with Kubalik--and the kid does show promise, but we said the same about Saad.
Goalies always seemed to be Tallon's achilles heel.....Khabby, then Huet....what a train wreck. I remember right when the Hawks started to turn the corner, my son had just gotten a great new job making well over 6 figures. He took me to Hawks game for my birthday...great seats, 1st row of the1st balcony right near the blueline. At the time, plenty of seats were available and he insisted at stopping at a booth that they advertised on the scoreboard about ticket plans and long term deals on seats. We talked for a bit with them but then the second period was about to start....they asked to see our tickets and would come to us at the next intermission. He was ready to buy the seats we were in for the rest of the season with a discounted playoff option as well. Like an idiot I talked him out of it solely because of the Hawks brutal goaltending....feeling they had zero shot with Khabby. He made a great case for my theory in that game as the Hawks were all over Minnesota but lost 5-2. I believe the shots for the game was something like 45-14.....in my mind, they couldnt and wouldn't do a thing until they got a goalie and I thought they were stuck with Khabby because of his contract. LOL, my son will never let me forget that and I will hate Khabibulin till the day I die.
To be fair to Khabi--he had one great year with the 'hawks--2008 I seem to recall. Beyond that he was either Meh. or injured. Was still a better choice than Lalime, Bouchard, etc--but not at his cap hit (with respect to the low cap ceiling back then).
As for Huet (and this cycles back to Hoss) we got lucky--being out west my choice is either a 6 hour drive to Vancouver or a 10 hour drive to San Jose, and back in November 2009 we chose Vancouver. Surprisingly most of the fans were decent enough with only a few dickbags. But anyways, the game we saw Huet was sitting and Neimi goosegged them 1-0 (Bickell with the GWG)...
...The very next game against San Jose was Hossa's 1st game as a 'hawk...so I can only say I've seen him play live as a Winterhawk back in 1998.
