What a difference a year makes. Or two years.

Two years ago, the Blackhawks had over $11 million wrapped up in goaltending with Nikolai Khabubulin and Cristobal Huet. Last year it was over $6 million with Huet and Antti Niemi. This year it's a little over $2 million with the tandem of Marty Turco and whomever wins the Corey Crawford/Hannu Toivonen duel.

So with no further ado, here's our look at the Hawks' goaltending situation for the upcoming season:

FORK: There's probably never been this before in the history of the NHL: A team winning the Stanley Cup, then defending it the following autumn with 100% turnover in goaltending. It's been predicted here and elsewhere that Huet would be in Europe this season. That's no surprise.

What is a surprise is that Niemi is gone. I'm pretty sure the Hawks' gameplan was to let Niemi apprentice under Huet last season, extend him for a few years at under $2 million/per, then set them up as a tandem for the 2010-11 season, then turn the keys over to Niemi for 2011-12.

I won't pretend to know what soured QStache on Huet. He was playing adequately, really no better or worse than Niemi. Niemi was being spot-started, so his numbers were a little better, but overall pretty much the same. Huet was a little weak in the crease, while Niemi was being caught out of position a lot.

Suddenly, QStache went into the Olympic break relying solely on Niemi. Between two weeks of Niemi being the exclusive goaltender, then the Olympics, Huet went from February 5 to March 2 without getting between the pipes. After that, he was pretty much useless.

All season long, it was my contention that the Hawks didn't need great goaltending, only adequate goaltending. Which was what Niemi supplied. Going into this season, I maintain that belief. Which I'm hoping I'm right about, since Marty Turco isn't a great goaltender.

Sure, he's decent. He's adequate. He'll throw the occasional stretch pass to Keith or Campbell, and it'll be fun to watch, especially on the Power Play. But his primary function will be to stop pucks. Last year I wasn't impressed with his play. To be fair, he was trying to stop the Hawks behind the Stars' defense, but still.

Turco isn't dumb. He took a huge pay cut to come to Chicago to play behind the Hawks' blueline and backcheck. He saw them hold opponents to less shots than anyone in the NHL. He probably figures he'll come here, rack up some good numbers - maybe even get a little Vezina buzz - then cash in next spring, when he'll have to compete in market with goalies like Giguere, Vokoun, and Niemi.

Strangely, every goalie is a FA after this year. Last year Niemi made the Hawks mainly because Crawford was still eligible to be sent down without having to clear waivers. This year he and Toivonen are on equal footing. Crawford makes a little more, but that won't be a factor. Whomever earns it with their play gets to back up Turco. This may very well be both goalie's last chance to prove they belong in the NHL.

But Turco, and whomever backs him up, will have to stop the few pucks that get through to them. The team defense will help them out a lot, but they need to hold up their end as well. Fortunately, again, this isn't a team like Buffalo which only goes as far as their goalie takes them. The goalie just needs to be good enough to not fuck up too badly. That's not to say this group lacks the potential to do just that.

CT:  I'm not even sure why we're bothering to write up the goaltenders.  Under the Hawks system, the goalies are pretty much interchangable, right?  Well, if that were actually true, Antti Niemi would be starting in net this year, as Cristobal Huet's Stanley Cup win would have raised his stock through the roof and got his ass traded out of town.  While I think there is something to Fork's contention that sitting Huet for that full month late in the season pretty much killed him, not all those bad goals Cristobal was giving up at the end of the season could be chalked up to rust.  Niemi showed a lot of improvement during the season, won the Stanley Cup (turning in a few brilliant performances along the way) and now is gone.  And what we have left is Marty Turco.

I'll say it now, I'm not a Marty Turco fan.  I think he's just as prone to soft goals and Huet was, and while his low salary will likely buy him time with the fans, too many screw ups and home will bring out the boo birds.  So, I hope Turco's got his ear plugs in, because in Chicago fans are quick to annoint the backup as a savior, and this year the fans will probably even quicker to do so, since last year it actually worked.

Which brings us to the backup...who will it be?  Crawford's a 1st round pick, but that was under Dale Tallon, and Corey actually managed to lose the starting job in Rockford for a while.  Toivonen has some previous experience as a backup in the NHL (although it wasn't great experience) AND he's Finnish so I'm sure somebody will equate him to Niemi at some point.

If I sound pessimistic about the goaltending situation, it's because I am.  Turco has had some very good seasons previously and I know the Hawks defense is supposed to cover up a lot of blemishes, but one thing that seems to be overlooked is how the turnover at forward is going to affect the team's defensive play.  The Blackhawks allowed the least number of shots in the league last year, and a large part of that was the commitment to backchecking that we saw from all 12 forwards every night.  Can we expect the same kind of play from Jack Skille and Viktor Stalberg?  That doesn't seem likely, and Marty Turco is going to be tested this season.  Let's hope he's up to it.