Robin Lehner’s shootout struggles have been well-documented throughout his NHL career.
Going into Sunday’s game, his .510 save percentage in shootouts ranked dead last out of the 104 goaltenders in league history who have faced a minimum of 40 shots. He had an 8-23 record and had given up 47 goals on 96 attempts.
But after going 0-for-3 in shootouts this season, Lehner stopped two of three attempts against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday as the Blackhawks rallied for a 3-2 victory, their fourth win in five games. And with the monkey off his back, Lehner celebrated appropriately.
“Yeah, definitely,” Lehner told reporters in Columbus on whether it felt good to get his first shootout win of the season. “Because this is one of those games that maybe the first two periods we didn’t deserve to win this game, but that’s how hockey works sometimes. We stuck with it, we got our goals and we battled really hard to get back. To lose this one in a shootout, it would’ve been tough. With what we did, we deserved to kind of come through there and it was a really nice feeling for me to get that.”
Lehner said he tried a different tactic in the shootout this time around. He used his 6-foot-4, 240-pound frame by simply staying along the goal line and letting the puck come to him.
There was also one another thing.
NHL
Right before the shootout, Zack Smith told him a “really, really bad story” to distract his mind. Lehner declined to share to the media what the story was, only saying “he just put it in my head and that was all I was thinking about.”
His teammates were just as thrilled for Lehner and it showed. Every Blackhawks player banged their sticks on the bench after his two saves and mobbed their goaltender after the win. It was the type of win that brings the guys together.
"Obviously the shootout was really big for the group,” head coach Jeremy Colliton said. “Everyone's really happy for Robin."
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