The test was delivered to Halak, with some trick questions and he passed. Sceptics may argue that Halak won two games by very close calls against some of the worse teams in the NHL, and that there isn't anything special there. Here is how I see it and I'll give 3 reasons why I think he's the real deal:
1) One of the toughest things for a goalie is to go cold for extended periods of time, and than be presented with a rush or power play where he has to make the key saves. One of the key attributes that made Ken Dryden arguable one of NHL's best goalies of all tomes candidate was his capability to spend whole periods, leaning on his stick, watching the team in front of him toy around with the opposition like a cat does with a half dead mouse before eating it, and all of a sudden be faced with an odd man rush and make a spectacular save to keep his team in the lead.
Halak made the saves when it counted in the first, and the two goals I'm the second were not softies by a long shot. He made the stops when it counted,
2) Maybe it was the mushrooms on my pizza, but I can swear I saw stick handling by the dude with the pads which put half our bench to shame. Halak's willingness, capability and comfort to come out of the net is one thing that shows how ready he is for the position. However having him play the puck to launch the transition game is not only a positive addition to our momentum, but was also highly successful. I can count at least 5 odd man rushes that began with Halak. Keep in mind these were not pucks dumped behind the net, shot off the boards, or long hail Maries to the other blue line. These were precise passes up the ice, tape to tape, and would trapped 2-3 of the fore-checking Caps behind the play. Here is something that will really help us deal with our Kryptonite (aggressive fore-check)
3) To the argument that the two wins accumulated with Halak in net are not true tests since the teams were bottom feeders of the league. I say pish-posh. We have had so much difficulty against these so called “bottom feeders”. I give credit to Halak for staying focused for 60 minutes and not taking anything for granted.
That’s my two cents on the matter. However I still caution all of you that nothing is for certain. He still has a long way to go to establish him self as a “saviour”, but at least so far he’s headed in the right direction, and all systems are go.
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