STARS UPGRADE IN GOAL WITH ENROTH
When healthy, Kari Lehtonen was a rock of consistency for the Dallas Stars through his first four-plus seasons with the team. The 2014-15 campaign has been an erratic one for the now 31-year-old Finn.
Lehtonen has not been helped any by a team prone to turnovers and coverage breakdowns that also struggles to clear traffic from in front of the net. However, these are not new problems for the Stars and Lehtonen has simply not played as well in his own right as he has in previous years.
Inadequate backup goaltending has been a chronic problem for the Stars in recent years, except for brief stretches at a time. Much of the team's frequent issue in winning the second half of back-to-back games came about because various Dallas backups -- most recently Anders Lindbà¤ck and Jussi Rynnà¤s and, before them, the likes of a spent Tim Thomas, Richard Bachman and Andrew Raycroft among others -- could not be routinely relied up to give the team a quality start when the need arose.
With yesterday's acquisition of Jhonas Enroth in a trade for the underachieving Lindbà¤ck and a conditional draft pick, the Stars may finally have themselves a goaltender capable of giving the club a run of competitive starts. As a matter of fact, it would not be shocking if Enroth even pushed Lehtonen for playing time if the Big Finn's rollercoaster season continues into the stretch drive. Having previously coached Enroth with Buffalo, Stars head coach Lindy Ruff is already familiar with the netmider.
With back-to-back games this weekend -- a home game against Florida on Friday and a road tilt with Colorado the next night -- the Stars can put Enroth to immediate use in split-duty with Lehtonen. From there, it remains to be seen how Ruff handles the goalie rotation. It seems likely, though, that Enroth will see significantly more frequent use than Lindbà¤ck.
Pretty much the only thing that Enroth and Lindbà¤ck have in common is their Swedish nationality. The small and quick Enroth is one of the few sub six-foot goalies in recent years to stake down an NHL job while the 6-foot-6 Lindbà¤ck has not lived up to the potential that many thought he had to become an NHL starter once he left Nashville (where no one was going to beat out perennial Vezina candidate Pekka Rinne).
Enroth is a player whom I've always rooted for, in part because his lack of size makes him an underdog in today's game, in part because his potential was obvious in the years he played in Sweden for Södertà¤lje SK and in part because we share a mutual affinity for the late Pelle Lindbergh.
Back when I co-authored with Thomas Tynander the English version of the "Behind the White Mask" biography of Lindbergh, I corresponded with Enroth about the final chapter, which partially looked at how Lindbergh influenced a new generation of Swedish goalies who were too young to have seen him play before his fatal car accident in 1985. Enroth was born in 1988, but his father was a youth hockey teammate and friend of Pelle's in Stockholm.
Enroth wrote to me -- mind you, this was before the Rangers' Henrik Lundqvist won the Vezina trophy and there a full-fledged proliferation of Swedish goaltenders in the NHL -- he and many other fellow goalies considered Lindbergh a trailblazer in an era time when the top Swedish (and other European) goaltenders who tried their hand at the NHL flopped.
Wrote Enroth, "He means a lot for us young goalies from Sweden. He won the Vezina and it shows that [other] Swedish goalies can!"
One of the items in Enroth's personal collection is the catching glove Pelle wore during the Philadelphia Flyers' run to the 1985 Stanley Cup Finals. It was a gift to him from former Portland Pirates assistant equipment manager Kevin Cady, who was a close friend of Pelle's from their days together with the AHL's Maine Mariners and the NHL with the Flyers.
Enroth is in the process of getting a new mask painted to wear in Stars games. While not decided for sure yet, he may have a tribute to Lindbergh included on the mask to pay respects to the 30th anniversary year of the star goaltender's death.
Other, more direct early influences on Enroth -- before he developed his own style -- was a blend of studying Lundqvist as well as Martin Gerber and smaller-sized goalies such as Tim Thomas and Vesa Toskala. Ultimately, he found what worked for himself. After graduating to the NHL level, he has done an underrated job under tough circumstances in Buffalo.
ROUSSEL SITS FOR TWO
Stars winger Antoine Roussel will miss the weekend games against the Panthers and Avalanche. The National Hockey League Department of Player Safety handed down a two-game suspension for Roussel's cross check on Bruins' defenseman Adam McQuaid in the Stars' 5-3 win in Boston on Tuesday.
Prior to the suspension, Roussel dressed in all 54 games the Stars played to date. For the season, the agitating forward has posted 22 points (11 goals, 11 assists) and 112 penalty minutes.