Goaltender Whisperer
This one might be more coincidence than anything, but you cannot deny the fact that Quenneville won with some mediocre goalies.
When he started, he had a Hall of Famer in Grant Fuhr, but he was at the end of his career. After that, we saw names like Jamie McLennan, Rich Parent, Brent Johnson, Jim Carey, Roman Turek, Fred Brathwaite, Chris Osgood, Curtis Sanford and Reinhard Divis. All of those guys were either mediocre, backups at best or flash-in-the-pans.
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In Colorado, he had to flip back and forth between Peter Budaj and Jose Theodore, who both fit the same bill as the Blues goaltenders. Then, in Chicago, he had Nikolai Khabibulin, Cristobal Huet, Antti Niemi, Corey Crawford and a laundry list of backups. That group of talent was probably the highest he’s ever had, but still not the highest of quality.
Khabibulin had been there before, getting to the finals with Tampa Bay, but he was never the main reason either franchise won. Niemi was a good 1b, but has shown that his success had as much or more to do with Chicago than his talent. Crawford has won a ton of games, but again, there have been plenty of nights they won because of the team. If you put him on a borderline playoff team, he does not transform them into a contender, despite his rings.
So, whether Quenneville actually knows anything about goaltending or not, he has managed to get his goaltenders to play good enough to win with. That is the bottom line and exactly what the Blues need right now.
I am one of the few, if not only, that consistently says goaltending is not the Blues biggest issue right now. It might not always be the solution, but there are so many other problems that happen before the shot even gets taken. If Quenneville could just get them settled down, this team would be on the right track.
The Blues are not winning games because of their goaltending right now, but they just cannot lose games because of it. They have shown, even in their struggles, if they do not rely on their goaltender, they give themselves a chance to win.
Whether you wanted this guy or that in net, none of the Blues goalies were all time greats within the past 20 years or so. So, you just need to get them to play well enough to allow your other pieces to do their job. Quenneville seems to have a pretty good track record in that department.