Did anyone notice that LA has cleaned goalie house? I think they're still going to run into problems playing Cechmanek and Hlincka, they're less likely to have to dip into their minor league system--when they ended up playing Cristobal Huet, who'd been with the French Olympic team before the 02-03 season, it showed how few reserves they had to deal with. Potvin, who never played out to the heightened expectations of the early 90's, is off to the old goalie rest home in Boston. And Jamie Storr? He's not on the LA Kings roster at all--he's off being an unrestricted free agent, and playing for Omsk in Russia. He says he'll be back "when the labour problems are over".
Yeah, and if he's back, he'll be back on a two-way, as a back-up to lower third eschelon team. Storr's just not that good, and is too fragile to be the number one for anyone in the NHL.
Storr might still be in the NHL if he had just figured out that for every hotstuff kid goalie coming out of juniors, there's a half-dozen 25 yr olds in the AHL, trying to wake up from the nightmare. Jimmy Waite--supposed to be a sure thing--hey, he toasted the competition in world juniors, didn't he? Last time I checked, he way playing in Germany. Tim Cheveldae was the answer to a question Detroit wasn't asking. Even the college ranked goalies aren't a sure bet--Turco (a holdout in Dallas) is looking a lot better than Steve Shields ever panned out to be, and both were touted as the next great thing.
Instead Storr came in, acting like the Kings should just hand over the reins to him. He complained when he was sent to Phoenix, and he complained when there were questions about his ability to compete as a number one goalie in the NHL. Compound that with his string of injuries--for the style he wants to play, I don't think his groin ever came back--and he's no longer making the cut.
If he had come close in the NHL to what he did in juniors, it's much more likely that LA would be feeling a lot more kindly to him. Instead, he's in Russia, and maybe under all the bravado, he's wondering exacly what happened.
Moral of the story? If you want the attitude, you'd better have the ability.
Posted by lsefton at September 16, 2003 09:32 PM