Jocelyn Thibault knew when he signed with the Penguins prior to last season that he would be relegated to backup duty behind Marc-Andre Fleury.
What he didn't expect was that he would play as little as he has. Because of that, the win Thibault earned Saturday in the Penguins' 7-2 victory in Phoenix was all the more special.
"It was great," Thibault said. "I haven't been playing much this year, but every time I get a chance to play, I try to give the team a chance to win."
He should have plenty of opportunities in the coming weeks, as the Penguins (23-17-8) enter February with a playoff berth in sight for the first time since 2001-02, when a 6-19-3-3 swoon in their last 31 games shoved them into the Atlantic Division basement, a position they maintained almost exclusively until this season.
This year, the NHL schedule-maker backlogged the Penguins' games so they will have five instances in which they play on back-to-back days. The next instance comes this weekend, when the Penguins host Washington on Saturday and travel to Montreal on Sunday.
With 34 games spread over the next 64 days, beginning tonight against Florida (19-22-10), there is little doubt the team will need many more quality efforts from Thibault.
"Against Phoenix, when the pressure was there, he made some key saves, and that's what you're looking for from your goalie is to make some important saves at the right time," Penguins coach Michel Therrien said. "We're going to need him. We're going to need our two goalies because you can't depend on one guy carrying the ball and we're going to need both guys."
So far, the jury is still out on just how dependable Thibault will be down the stretch.
Thibault was once so highly thought of that he was taken 10th overall by the Quebec Nordiques in the 1993 draft and eventually traded to his hometown Montreal Canadiens in the deal that sent Patrick Roy to Colorado. He's still the seventh-fastest goaltender to reach 200 career wins, which prompted former Penguins general manager Craig Patrick to tender him a two-year, $3 million contract. A hip problem, however, limited Thibault's effectiveness last season, and he finished the year 1-9-3 with a 4.46 goals-against average.
This season has been marginally better. Thibault is 2-5-2 with a 3.29 GAA, but he's had to change his approach from averaging 59.4 games every season from 1995-96 through 2002-03 to playing in a limited role as a backup.
"I haven't gotten as many wins as I would have liked to this year, but every game I played I thought I gave the team a chance to win," Thibault said. "I know this is my role on the team this year, and I've been working to try to get my game back to where it belonged after last year with a slow start and another hip injury. But this year, I wanted to get back and have a good season regardless of how many games I play."
Thibault has taken Fleury under his wing and spent a lot of time imparting his years of knowledge upon the 23-year-old goaltending prodigy. The improvement in Fleury's game has been astonishing, as his goals-against average has plummeted from 3.36 to 2.87 and his 21 wins are four more than his career total coming into this year.
"He's always talking to me and trying to help me figure out guys and stuff like that," Fleury said. "He knows the players better than I do because he's been around for so long. We'll go through the guys and say whether this guy has a good shot or that guy's a passer, and sometimes it's just the technical stuff on the ice where, after a goal, I'll go see him and ask him if I should have done something differently."
Still, one advantage Thibault has over Fleury is postseason experience. He's been through the grind of a playoff chase several times in his career and, despite the fact he has never won a playoff series, he is one of the few players on the team who has participated in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
And it's a certainty he'll do everything he can to help Fleury along as the team heads into the stretch drive, including taking his turn between the pipes.
"I'll be there to help him out and I'll be asked to play some games, too," Thibault said. "When you're young, you think that you're going to win five Stanley Cups because there's so many years ahead of us, but when you get older and you haven't won a Cup yet ... you realize that time is running out and you're desperate to make the playoffs and have that shot to win the Cup."
