3 Goalie Stars – October 11, 2010

This season we’ll select the three stars from the previous week’s action and bring them to you on Monday mornings – we’re a day late this week thanks to the Canadian Thanksgiving Holiday. Stay tuned next Sunday and we’ll have a poll included to let you have your input on the three stars.

We’ll be keeping track of our winners all season long and giving a season ending award to the most consistent star goaltender.

After you’re done reading – hit that comment link and tell us who your three stars are and why!

Here they are for the first week of the new season:

Quick played a solid first game, but his retro mask and gear were the real stars this week.

1. Jonathan Quick’s retro gear, Los Angeles Kings: Throwback all brown pads and a Rogie Vachon tribute mask complete with painted ears and hair coming out from the small old-school lid. Enough said. But if not, check out In Goal Magazine’s exclusive first photos of Quick’s inspired set up, because a picture really is worth a thousand words, but judging from the feedback we’ve received so far, “wow” usually suffices.

2. Tim Thomas, Boston Bruins: It was way too easy to jump on Thomas when things fell off last season following a Vezina Trophy-winning campaign the year before. Pundits pointing to everything from his acrobatic style to being stuck in Finland for so long in his career. What they failed to point to was his hip, which had both a badly torn labrum and a couple of nickel-sized bone chips, something few know even now. With both problems corrected surgically it’s no surprise to see the hard-battlingThomas pitch a shutout in his first game since last April, stopping all 29 shots in a 3-0 win over Phoenix in the Czech Republic on Monday.

3. Nikolai Khabibulin, Edmonton Oilers: Speaking of comebacks, the Bulin Wall had lost a few bricks since he last played for the Oilers, first because of back surgery that shortened his first season in Edmonton, and then a drunk driving conviction that threatened to derail his second. Instead, Khabibulin, who pending an appeal still faces jail time in Arizona that could cut his season short, won his first starts in 11 months. And he did it in impressive fashion, pitching a 37-save shutout of rival Calgary in the season opener, and single handedly earning the Oilers a 3-2 victory over Florida despite being outshot 28-13 on Sunday.