Two games into his NHL career and I'm ready to say he's ready to stay. I think we can feel comfortable letting Khabi go bye bye.
Looks damn good.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

They need to either get Khabi to retire or hide him the rest of the year due to the salary cap, but I agree that he should be the backup.

Too early to tell. I need a much bigger sample size. I am hoping that Q uses him at least every third game. As it stands, the Hawks will get a high playoff seed. I'd like to see Crow rested as much as possible especially since he's been overused early on.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

My only concern with Raanta is that there just doesn't seem to be much of him. It could be that I'm just so used to the Stay-Puft Man in net most nights, but I worry about him leaving some big openings. At least he seems pretty agile.

I wonder if they could loan Khabibulin to Rockford and then suspend him for failing to report. The Ducks circumvented the cap after their Cup year by suspending Niedermayer and Selanne for failing to report.

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Now that his run is just about over I feel he's played enough games to get a feel for him. Not spectacular by any means but certainly good enough to be a back up this year and miles better than Khabibulin for sure. I'd feel confident giving him a spot start against anyone . Need more input to see if he has No 1 stuff and the Blackhawks defense is so good it's hard to get a real read on just how well he played . Definitely needs to work on stopping breakaways. Overall I'd say B- C+

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Has not been good the last couple games.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Wouldn't be surprised to see Raanta go down to the AHL to get some work in during the Olympic break. It would also open up $100,000 in cap space, by my rough calculations. Hey, every dollar counts.

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Why would cap space matter during the Olympics?

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Elections have consequences.

Cap space is measured by the day, of which there are 195 in this season. I would take this to mean that days in the Olympic break count toward the cap, even if there's a roster freeze during such time (there's also a roster freeze for Christmas, and those days count). If Raanta is on a one-way contract, his cap hit minus $925,000 would be off the books for those days that he's not on the 23-man roster. Since his hit is $925,000, there'd be no cap hit at all.

So I went into Excel and wrote in "=(925000/195)*21" which gave me $99,615. He'll be paid in full because it's a one-way deal, but it won't count toward the cap.

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OK cool

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Elections have consequences.

Even without the cap implications, it would be better to use his waiver exemption to get some reps/gain his confidence back, rather than just bumming around for the rest of February. I don't think the Hawks have anyone else on the roster who's waiver-exempt besides Pirri; I expect him to go back down as well.

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Looks like now he's in Q's shit house.
Darling has been the go to man.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014