| 17 October 2011
No team ever wants to be down 5-1 in a game, but what about when you’re the goalie heading to the crease in relief? Moreover, what if coming into the game is your American Hockey League debut?
All of that was the case for goaltender Karel St. Laurent when he was called upon to take over for Anton Khudobin in Friday night’s game against the Manchester Monarchs.
Goaltender Michael Hutchinson took a puck to the face in practice on Thursday and head coach Bruce Cassidy said Friday that he was “day-to-day.”
St. Laurent tweeted Thursday afternoon that he was called up from their East Coast Hockey League affiliate the Reading Royals after he signed with the Bruins and was assigned there in early October. He had been an invite to the Vancouver Canucks try out camp but was released.
The native of Ville Ste-Catherine, a suburb of Montreal, spent the majority of last season in Junior “A” ice hockey playing in the British Columbia Hockey League (BCHL) for the Surrey Eagles. Through 32 games, his GAA was 2.74 and his save % was .916. St. Laurent started the season with 5 games with the Saint John Sea Dogs of the QMJHL but was released; he had spent the 2008-09 and 2009-10 season with the Sea Dogs.
Friday’s game got off to a rough start with Providence trailing the entire game. After letting in a fifth goal, Khudobin was pulled from the game and St. Laurent skated to net.
This type of professional debut is not ideal but it is exciting nonetheless for the goaltender who says he doesn’t put a lot of stress on himself.
“I got in in a situation we don’t want to be in, down 5-1,” St. Laurent said following the game, “For me it was great to get some AHL action. I enjoyed it.”
As exciting as getting off the bench may be, it can be tough especially if one does not know the league very well. For St. Laurent, he only got into Providence before midnight on Thursday and had only one practice with the squad.
“I don’t know much about the league,” St. Laurent said a few times but it was nothing that he was using as an excuse.
“They battled hard. They’re a good team over there,” he said of Manchester. And he was sure to pat his new teammates on the back as well, “[There is a] good group of guys out here and they work hard. It’s just a matter of time.”
Maybe from the outside one would think that skating onto the ice to try and turn the game around is stressful but St. Laurent says it is “definitely less stress” during a game.
“Maybe when you know you’re getting the start, you have all day think about it so maybe it gives you a little more stress than if you’re on the bench then you’re not expecting it sometimes,” he said.
St. Laurent stopped 12 of the 14 shots he faced making some significant saves in the process. He did not see any action for the rest of the weekend but based on his Twitter, he is just happy to be in Providence.
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