Damian Rhodes
Damian Rhodes ( born May 28, 1969 in St. Paul, Minnesota ) is a retired American professional ice hockey goaltender who played from 1991 to 2002 for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Ottawa Senators and Atlanta Thrashers in the National Hockey League.
Career
Damian Rhodes began his career in 1985 at the high school in Richfield Spartans and played two years for the team. In the NHL Entry Draft in 1987, he was selected by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the sixth round at position 112. He first went to Michigan Technological University and played three years for the college team.
In the fall of 1990, Rhodes joined the AHL to the Newmarket Saints, the farm team of Toronto. He was not a good season, but was allowed a game at the Maple Leafs contest in the NHL, where he only conceded one goal.
But in the following two years he got no inserts in the NHL and played on the farm team, which was now St. John 's Maple Leafs. There he gave a convincing performance and made it into the 1993/94 season in the NHL squad, where he played 22 games as a back-up goalie Felix Potvin of. He took this role even further one and a half years before he was transferred further on January 23, 1996 only to the New York Islanders and the same day to the Ottawa Senators.
There he took on the role of the parent goalkeeper. In the summer of 1996, with Ron Tugnutt another goalkeeper of the team with which he henceforth shared the inserts. 1998/99 he had his best season in Ottawa, as he for the first time with the team, which was only six years earlier, won more games than he lost. On 22 victories came 13 defeats.
In the summer of 1999 he was transferred to the Atlanta Thrashers, who stood before her first season in the NHL. Although the team used a total of five goalkeepers in the course of the season, but were basically Rhodes and Norm Maracle the goalkeeper. But since most new teams need to compete in the NHL several years, was the season for Rhodes not very good and he won very few games, and he also fell because of an injury longer. In the 2000 /01 season he shared with Milan Hnilička the stakes and played the following season, but only as a back-up goalie.
In summer 2002, Rhodes managed not to jump into the NHL Thrashers squad because he had to undergo surgery of groin hernia. He played during the 2002/ 03 season in the AHL Lowell Lock Monsters in the and in the East Coast Hockey League in Greenville Grrrowl. His last season he completed in 2003/ 04 when he again played seven games for Lowell. After he finished his career.
Special
Damian Rhodes is the first goalkeeper in the NHL, who managed a shutout in a game and scored a goal. On January 2, 1999, was 1-0 for the Ottawa Senators against the New Jersey Devils, as a penalty against Senator was displayed and goalkeeper Martin Brodeur New Jersey left the field, but still wanted to another fielder. A player the Devils, who was in the third of the Senators wanted to play the puck to a teammate on the Blue Line, but the puck missed the players and landed in its own goal. Since Rhodes had touched the last player the Senators the puck, his goal was credited. The game ended with 6 to 0