Chicago Blackhawks Take Khabibulin To Tampa Bay 10 Years After Stanley Cup Run
The Chicago Blackhawks travel to Tampa Bay to take on the Lightning Thursday night, and while there is little history between the franchises, there is one player sure to be thinking about the past.
Blackhawks goalie Nikolai Khabibulin will start in net for Chicago against the team with which he won Lord Stanley’s cup a decade ago. In his second stint with the Blackhawks, Khabibulin is making only his second start against Tampa Bay since hoisting the Cup with the Bolts after the 2003-04 season.
“I had such a great experience here,” Khabibulin told the Tampa Tribune‘s Erik Erlendsson. “I think the whole team and how we were really together a lot of guys stepped in obviously the star players played great and to me the biggest memory was winning the last game at home.”
As Erlendsson notes, newly-appointed Captain Martin St. Louis is the only remaining member of the Stanley Cup winning Lightning still with the team when the Blackhawks head south, after Vincent Lecavalier’s offseason departure.
“At times he was just the backbone of our team and without Khabby I don’t think we are celebrating the Stanley Cup,” St. Louis said.
Once both men step out onto the ice, it’s sure to be all business; nostalgia can wait until after the game. Khabibulin, who signed a one-year, $2-million-deal in July to back up Corey Crawford, will make his second start of the season for Chicago.
Khabibulin previously played in goal for the Blackhawks from 2005-09. In his first game of the 2013 campaign, a 3-2 Chicago win against the visiting New York Islanders, Khabibulin allowed 2 quick goals on 19 shots. With a win Thursday night, the 6-1-2 Blackhawks would move into a tie with Colorado atop the Western Conference’s Central Division.
Against the Lightning, the Blackhawks face the 7th rank offense in the league, led by Steven Stamkos, described by Barry Melrose as “the best goal scorer in the world.”
What do you think of the Chicago Blackhawks’s chances against the Tampa Bay Lightning? Should the Blackhawks start Khabibulin in net against his former team? Can the Chicago Blackhawks repeat as champions?
