In a 10-part series, we look back at the 10-year anniversary of the 2008-09 season, the start of the Blackhawks dynasty.
Every Stanley Cup contender needs to have strong goaltending. You simply can't win without it. The Blackhawks shored up that position when they signed Nikolai Khabibulin to a four-year deal in 2005, but didn't have the surrounding parts to go with it. And by the time they did, he was in his mid-30s.
So the Blackhawks went out and signed Cristobal Huet to a four-year, $22.4 million contract on July 1, 2008, to help provide a quality 1-2 punch between the pipes for a young team that had the pieces up front and on the back end to complement them.