Ideally you don’t want to be holding auditions for a backup goalie’s role in mid-season.
If you’re having a run-off for spots at the bottom of your roster, for your fourth line or third blue line pair, knock yourself out.
But if you haven’t established who’s going to work in a back-to-back in the dead of winter, it’s a bit of an issue.
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Maybe Antoine Bibeau will emerge as that guy in Toronto but it’s still up for discussion for the Toronto Maple Leafs after their 3-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche Sunday night.
Jhonas Enroth came into the season the presumptive No. 2. In four starts he went 0-3-1 and in all his duty he registered a save percentage of .872 and was giving up just about four goals per 60 minutes. Not good enough. He’s down with the Marlies, trying to find himself.
The Leafs can be forgiven if they have already forgotten where they put him.
So it was Enroth who was waived and then sent down and the 22-year-old Bibeau who was called up and given his shot after putting in the last two full seasons with the AHL affiliate.
It seemed like a good, if not perfect, situation for a rookie to draw his first NHL start.
The Leafs had played the night before and burned up a lot of energy in a 4-1 win in Boston Saturday. No matter, they had to assume the Avalanche would be a dispirited bunch—the Montreal Canadiens had thoroughly tenderized and ground up the young Colorado team 10-1.
And for the first 10 minutes or so, it looked like it would play out that way.
Early on, the home team dominated possession and play in the first period—shots were at one point 16-3 and any real action that Bibeau saw was at the distance of 180 feet or so.
The Leafs buzzed the Avalanche net but couldn’t beat Semyon Varlamov. Not that Varlamov had to be spectacular. Through that stretch he had a couple of four-star but not really a five-star chance to turn aside.
Most of the time Toronto’s shooters were undone by a rolling puck, a bad bounce, a defender just doing enough to bother a shooter to undo a quality chance. The numbers would have been even more one-sided if the home team generated more than a single shot on its two power plays.
The longer the game remained scoreless, the more you had a sense that one goal against the flow of play could suck the air out of the ACC.
Which is exactly as it turned out.
Shots were 20-6 in favour of the Leafs when with two minutes left in the first period, Tyler Bozak took a tripping penalty as a Toronto power play petered out.
On the ensuing Colorado man advantage, Matt Duchene controlled the puck in front of Bibeau and found Mikko Rantanen with a behind-the-back pass and it was 1-0. Oxygen masks should have dropped from the rafters.
For the next 40 minutes, the Leafs’ pace dropped and the Avs played them on fairly level terms. And when Nathan MacKinnon made it 2-zip on a power play with 12 minutes left in regulation, you just had a sense it wasn’t the Leafs’ night.
With a couple of minutes left and playing six skaters to three with Bibeau pulled, Jake Gardiner wired a shot high blocker-side to deny Varlamov the shutout. Despite a blizzard of shots the Avs hung on.
Varlamov turned aside 51 of 52 on the night. Blake Comeau’s empty-netter in the dying seconds sent Leafs fans out into the cold.
After the game, Bibeau wasn’t downcast. Anything but, really.
He talked about his family coming in to see the game that he had worked all his life for. He talked about the excitement in the arena, although it might have been more subdued than he imagined. By Bibeau’s reckoning he did what he could. His team did everything but score. In the history of the NHL no team has registered a win doing everything but scoring.
“The boys played so great,” he said. “They had so many chances. They just couldn’t score that second goal.”
Mike Babcock gave Bibeau at least a passing grade. It would be pretty harsh not to, given that he turned aside 27 of 29. Yeah, he looked nervous at a couple of points when he was dead cold in the first but he showed more as he went along.
“I thought the kid in net did a really nice job,” Babcock said. “He was square. He looked calm. I thought the release on the second goal … he should have been out a little bit on that.
“He had to make some good saves, not a ton … I just felt comfortable. I wasn’t in panic mode with him in net.”
Backing up Frederik Andersen isn’t exactly Bibeau’s job to lose. Even if Bibeau had been able to skate away with a win, you have to suspect that the Leafs will look for another solution, a guy who has put in time in the league.
Karri Ramo, late of Calgary and knee surgery, fits the bill and he’s trying to find his game. Maybe there’s someone available in trade—back-up goaltenders aren’t precious commodities. They are by definition replacement players. Maybe Enroth could get another look.
Bibeau might not even be a replacement-level player—there’s not too much you can read into Sunday night’s game. Still, he’s developing.
He might not be a prime prospect—he’s a sixth-round pick who played with four teams in the QMJHL and he has stuck around a .910 save percentage in the AHL. He might only be an organization player.
But you’d be stunting his development if he were anointed the backup. Worse, you be sending the wrong message to a team that wants to vie for the playoffs.
After all, the No. 2 is a pulled groin or high-ankle sprain away from being the netminder you must ride.
