Canadian netminder Christian Boucher has today become just the second ever netminder to return to the Excel Hull Stingrays for a second consecutive year, re-signing with the club for the 11/12 Elite League campaign.
The 27 year old was brought in by Stingrays player-coach Sylvain Cloutier last summer to fill the hole left by standout netminder Latvian Martins Raitums - who returned to Eastern Europe - and, having won the Dutch Eredivise in his lone year in Holland with the Nijmegen Devils, he was a constant force for the Stingrays behind a defence that was, all too often, questionable.
While his critics may say he won very few games on his own, he very rarely cost the club with a bad individual performance and that is something the club has all too often lacked in it's netminding department.
For a team battling consistency issues all year long and looking to break above the .500 win mark his reliability is, and was last season, crucial and was certainly a determining factor in his return after helping the Rays to a record year in the Elite League.
Speculation suggests coach Cloutier explored his options before retaining the former Rio Grande Killer Bee, notably enquiring about Steve Silverthorn, brother of Rays centre Jason, in the end rewarding 'Bouch' for his loyalty to the club last summer, while opting for solidity and stability over the uncertainty and unpredictability of a new signing unfamiliar with the club or country.
In the end, the risk factor of bringing an unknown quantity in, particularly when Boucher, a perfectly good netminder, was ready to return, was too much for Cloutier, who said:
"I am extremely excited Christian is coming back, as I thought he did a great job for us. I expect Bouch to improve on what he did last season. He will be comfortable right from the start, he knows the area and, most importantly, he wanted to be back in Hull. He wants to help us build on what we did last season. We beat every record the team had in the Elite League last season and he was a big part of that. Bouch will be one of the leaders on and off the ice and I expect him to lead our 'D' in the right direction."A graduate of Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Boucher becomes just the second ever netminder to return for a second successive season with the Stingrays.
He joins the similarly consistent Slovakian stopper Miroslav Bielik in that category and the fact he is just the second in a long line of seven keepers to re-sign outlines the problem the club has had between the pipes, with injuries and poor consistency frequently a problematic combination, albeit one which Boucher largely solved last season.
With the expected revamp of the club's defensive corps scheduled, he should, in theory, be better protected to shine next summer with Sam McCluskey and Dan Scott the first two pieces to the defensive puzzle. However, with a brand new blueline predicted by the Hull Daily Mail it looks likely that stalwarts Drew Bannister and Kurtis Dulle will not return for another year with the club adding to the almost certain departure of Trevor Read and Craig Mitchell's confirmed move to Dundee.
