as if to confirm my suspicions from yesterday's post, or at the very least to make me even more suspicious, the calgary flames re-assigned curtis mcelhinney to the quad cities, and called up matt keetley this evening...
WTF ???
i don't know if anyone who has seen him play would argue that keetley is the next #1 in the system (apologies to both krahn and poor curtis, but no apologies to irv --who is younger, but clearly the one to watch). i loved this guy in prospect camp, and stated back in july after a goaltending practise:
"i was really surprised by keetley, as he seemed the most advanced and has a lightning fast, kipper-like glove hand. all around, he seemed more solid today than our leland."
...but is he READY ? that's the big Q. the kid's 21 years old and is, essentially, straight out of junior (save for preseason in alberta and 5 games in the QC). sure, he looked solid in the one preseason game he played against the panthers, but.... why bring him up ??!
it's completely plausible, of course, that mcelhinney is not 100%, and that keenan (having now opened the floodgates on pulling kiprusoff out of games) would prefer a game-ready backup. but it's also entirely plausible that sutter et al. are fasttracking keets to play fulltime, pending the next-season loss of and/or hard press on a contract for kipper.
yikes.
minnesota v. calgary with kippy in some bad headspace ? it ain't gonna be pretty....
glad i'm gonna be there to watch it go down first-hand... :)
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I think it's more of a "give MceLhinney some playing time" thing than a real promotion for Keetley.
I had a bad feeling that Keetley may have seen some ice time after that first period tonight...
Must have been a good two periods to be at the game (the first one doesn't count)...
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