Cam Talbot wins with a ninth team, and Columbus got him for $950,000
The 39-year-old became the first goalie to win with nine franchises, and the Blue Jackets may need him more than they planned.
Cam Talbot has now won an NHL game with nine different teams. That's a league record, and also roughly the number of moving boxes he must own. The better story is the price: Columbus paid $950,000 for a 39-year-old insurance policy, and in his first start he made history in a game Columbus should have put away in regulation.
Friday's 3-2 shootout win over Pittsburgh made Talbot the first goalie in NHL history to win with nine franchises. He'd been tied at eight with Curtis McElhinney, Sean Burke and Ron Tugnutt. The full list now runs the Rangers, Edmonton, Philadelphia, Calgary, Minnesota, Ottawa, Los Angeles, Detroit and Columbus.
The game was lopsided in a way the score hides. Columbus outshot Pittsburgh 45-22.
Damon Severson and Mathieu Olivier built a 2-0 lead by the middle of the second. Then Bryan Rust and Evgeni Malkin tied it, Malkin on a deflection 3:19 into the third. Sergei Murashov kept the Penguins alive at the other end and earned the third star.
Talbot only had to make 20 saves. He made the ones that counted, then stopped Rickard Rakell, Egor Chinakhov and Ben Kindel in the shootout. Kent Johnson scored the only shootout goal.
The number: .877. That's Jet Greaves's save percentage through two starts, per NHL data. Talbot sits at .909 after one. Both samples are tiny. But this is exactly how a $950,000 backup ends up with more starts than anyone planned in September.
Columbus didn't sign Talbot to chase a record. Elvis Merzlikins had shoulder surgery with no timeline, and the Blue Jackets needed a goalie who had seen everything. He has 568 NHL games, 279 wins and 33 shutouts.
He was also coming off a rough year as Detroit's backup, an .883 save percentage in 34 games. That's why he was still on the market in mid-September.
Ferda take: the record is a great trivia answer, and it says something nice about the guy. Nine teams wanted Cam Talbot in their crease badly enough to sign him. That isn't a drifter's résumé. That's a goalie GMs trust when the plan falls apart.
Columbus's plan already has a crack in it. If Greaves doesn't steady himself this week, Talbot gets real work, and the Blue Jackets find out whether a 39-year-old on a one-year deal can carry a share of the load.
Our call: Talbot starts at least four of Columbus's next 10 games. And if it all goes sideways, somebody signs him for a tenth.
