Can The Blackhawks Win It All With Cristobol Huet?

Now I fully admit that I know absolutely nothing about the NHL or hockey. My analysis may be completely wrong and feel free to correct me, but here we go.

A lot of analysts picked the Blackhawks to win the Stanley Cup this year (a lot also picked the Chicago Bears and that worked out well for them). However, as any sports fan or three year old can tell you, you can't win at all without defense. (While this is not true, your defense can't be shitty either). The Blackhawks let go of their aging goalie Nikolai Khabibulin so they can go with the much younger and cheaper Huet. But from what I've heard (and I remember he gave up like five goals in a playoff game last year or something) Huet wasn't good. Which made me wonder, why would people pick the Blackhawks to win at all if they have a goalie that isn't good? So I did my best to research Cristobol Huet to see if he really is good.

To my surprise, when I went to the ESPN NHL stat page, Huet was 5th overall among all goalies in goals against average. However, Huet is only 27th in save percentage and 30th in save percentage in shoot outs. However, statistically speaking, the point differential between Huet and the leaders in save percentage are seemingly very minimal. However, this "minimal" difference seems to show up because Huet is t-17th overall in total goals allowed. So can you really go far in the playoffs if your goalie is allowing all these goals? Obviously, if you're offense is good enough then you can overcome your defensive proficiencies, but not many teams seemingly can do that.

However, there is a glimmer of hope. Chris Osgood, a Stanley Cup winner is not that good either. Last year, Osgood's save percentage in 26 games was really bad and Detroit beat the Blackhawks in the playoffs. Osgood has a career save percentage along the lines that Huet has now and because Detroit is so good, Osgood has multiple championships.

So can the Blackhawks win with Cristobol Huet? Of course it's possible. But is something you should realistically expect? I would say no.