Khabibulin Yields a Net Gain

The Tampa Bay Lightning couldn’t afford to keep goalie Nikolai Khabibulin. The Chicago Blackhawks couldn’t afford to pass him up.

Rewarding the key players from its 2004 Stanley Cup triumph left the Lightning little room under the new $39-million salary cap. Deciding that locking up Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis was its priority, management committed $59 million to the duo and hoped Khabibulin might value a chance to repeat as champion above the freedom to shop his services.

The Blackhawks, who had won a league-low 20 games and had made the playoffs once in seven seasons, had plenty of cap room because they had little excellence to reward. General Manager Dale Tallon envisioned Khabibulin as the backbone of a team he hoped to build around a stream of promising youngsters and a few rugged veterans.

That pitch -- and a four-year, $27-million offer -- lured Khabibulin to Chicago in August.

“I think everything goes into consideration,” the 32-year-old Russian said. “I liked the contract that I was offered and I liked the direction that the Blackhawks were taking, keeping some of the young guys and drafting well the last few years and adding some veterans.”

After a rough start, he’s making Chicago’s investment look good, with a 2.25 goals-against average and .919 save percentage in his last eight games. His record in that span is 4-4 but would be better if the Blackhawks didn’t average a league-high 22.4 penalty minutes per game and hadn’t been short-handed a league-high 189 times. Overall, his goals-against average is 3.33 and his save percentage is .876.

“I think it’s going to take time for us to jell together and learn the system perfectly and get to know each other, because we do have 16 new guys,” he said. “It’s not going to happen overnight, but at the same time we don’t want to use it as an excuse when we lose the games.”

Khabibulin is the least of the concerns facing Tallon, whose team will play host to the Kings on Wednesday in the United Center. Tallon worries more about Eric Daze’s chronic back problems, the sore back that has idled pugnacious forward Tuomo Ruutu, who led the Blackhawks with 23 goals in 2003-04, and the team’s failure to finish its scoring chances in close games.

“We’re happy that we got him. He hasn’t been great yet, but he’s getting better,” Tallon said of Khabibulin. “I think what happens when you sign a guy like that, of that magnitude and for that amount of money, Habby’s such a professional and he’s such a great athlete that he put a lot of pressure on himself early to try and do too much....

“We had nine free agents, and most, if not all, felt the same thing. They want to impress and do more than maybe they’re capable of, sometimes.”

Tallon said Khabibulin acknowledged that “he felt tight” after missing a year and returning to new rules and smaller goalie equipment.

“But the last couple of weeks, he’s been a lot better,” Tallon said. “I think he’ll be fine.”

Coach Trent Yawney said Khabibulin had exceeded that standard lately.

“He’s just playing better. That’s the bottom line,” Yawney said. “I don’t think he was looking at anybody else for help. He took it upon himself and he’s playing much better and he’s giving us timely saves. He’s being Khabibulin of old.”

The Khabibulin of the 2003-04 playoffs was a marvel. He compiled a 1.71 goals-against average and recorded five shutouts, but he also benefited from a steady defense corps and reliable offensive support. Chicago’s top rookies, forwards Pavel Vorobiev, Rene Bourque and Matt Ellison and defensemen Brent Seabrook and Duncan Keith, aren’t yet at that level.

“Definitely, we have a few kids that are playing well, and I think they’re going to be terrific players,” Khabibulin said. “Experience is one thing that you don’t get born with, so it will take time. Overall, we need to get more consistent with what we’re doing. Once we get that, it seems like we’re playing good.”

It’s Not Fine

In Rule 56, subsection (a) of the National Hockey League Official Rules for 2005-06, highlighted in yellow to distinguish them as new, are these words:

“A player who is deemed to be the instigator of an altercation in the final five (5) minutes of regulation time or at any time in overtime, shall be assessed an instigator minor penalty, a major for fighting, a ten-minute misconduct and an automatic one-game suspension. The length of suspension will double for each subsequent offense. In addition, the player’s coach shall be fined $10,000 -- a fine that will double for each subsequent incident.”

But Colin Campbell, the NHL’s director of hockey operations, invoked an unwritten prerogative and didn’t fine Phoenix Coach Wayne Gretzky after Shane Doan was penalized as an instigator late in the Coyotes’ game against the Mighty Ducks on Nov. 22.

Campbell told the Canadian Press he’d reserved the right to review instigator penalties in the last five minutes of a game “to see if it would pass the litmus test....

“Is this guy a two-shift guy who was out to send a message? Was it a tough guy doing his thing and leaving his calling card? Obviously, when you’re talking about Doan, he played the most minutes in the game, you’re not sending him out to send a message.”

Campbell is leaving himself and the league open to criticism by reducing a rule to a discretionary call. There are plenty of forwards who are tough but can score. If a player has more than 20 penalty minutes, does that meet Campbell’s definition of a tough guy and leave the coach liable for a fine? Would it take 50 minutes? A coach not named Gretzky?

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Slap Shots

Just before Christmas 2003, Boston Bruin owner Jeremy Jacobs said he “wouldn’t want to be Mike O’Connell right now.”

O’Connell, the club’s general manager, might not want to be O’Connell at the moment.

The Bruins’ slump, which has reached eight losses in nine games, has put the jobs of O’Connell and Coach Mike Sullivan in jeopardy. Jacobs recently said that, based on players’ history, “We should have a terrific team, and it’s not there.”

Referee Don Van Massenhoven will be out indefinitely after undergoing seven hours of reconstructive facial surgery for injuries he suffered when a puck deflected into his face during a game at Sunrise, Fla.