Roman Turek

Roman Turek (born May 21, 1970 in Strakonice, Czechoslovakia — now the Czech Republic) is a professional ice hockey goaltender, who played for the Dallas Stars, St. Louis Blues, and Calgary Flames in a 9-year National Hockey League career. Currently he is playing in the Czech Extraliga for HC České Budějovice.

Playing career

Drafted 113th overall by the Minnesota North Stars in the 1990 NHL Entry Draft, he moved with them to Dallas where he played as the backup to Ed Belfour. He won a Stanley Cup in this role in 1999. Despite his backup role, he achieved international glory with the Czech Republic team, backstopping them to a gold medal at the 1996 World Championships. In this year he played in Germany for the Nuremberg Ice Tigers.

He was traded to the St. Louis Blues in the 1999 off-season, and finally got his chance to shine as he topped the league with seven shutouts and won the William M. Jennings Trophy in his first season. He helped the Blues to the President's Trophy that year and the Blues entered the playoffs with high expectations but were ousted in seven games by the eighth-seeded San Jose Sharks, some aggravated Blues fans pinning responsibility on Turek because of some soft goals he allowed, including one in Game Seven that was fired from center ice. However, he played a second season with the Blues while being challenged for the #1 position by backup Brent Johnson. He put up good numbers again, this time helping the Blues reach the playoffs as the #4 seed where they faced off again in the first round against the Sharks. This time Turek helped the Blues beat the Sharks in six games and then helped them sweep the Stars, his former team, in the second round. However, in the third round against the Colorado Avalanche soft goals plagued him again (including one scored after an attempt to scoop the puck into his glove with his stick) and again in some fan circles bore the brunt of the blame for the Blues' third round 4-1 ouster. In the off season Turek was traded to the Calgary Flames.

In the 2003-04 season, Roman's status as the Flames number 1 goaltender was altered drastically when Darryl Sutter traded a conditional draft pick for Miikka Kiprusoff, whose stellar performances relegated Turek to the bench. However, Turek was a dependable backup, as Kiprusoff led the Flames to the 2004 Stanley Cup finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

In 2004 Turek restructured his contract to substantially drop his salary from $5M plus bonuses for the 04-05 and 05-06 seasons. The restructuring brought his salary to between $1M and $2M, with potential earnings relying heavily on performance bonuses. The restructuring saved the Calgary Flames organization between $3M and $4M in 2004. [cite news |first= |last= |title=Report: Turek re-works deal with Flames |url=http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=89653&hubname= TSN.ca] |date=2004-07-01 |accessdate=2008-02-25 ]

Turek announced his retirement from the NHL on August 9, 2005.

Trivia

* Turek used Iron Maiden mascot "Eddie the Head" as the main theme in all his masks from the different NHL teams he played with which created some very individual/interesting masks.

Career statistics

Regular season

Post-season

Awards

*1996 World Championships All-Star Team
*1996 World Championships Best Goaltender
*1999 William M. Jennings Trophy
*2000 William M. Jennings Trophy

International play

* 1994 Played for Czech Republic at 1994 Winter Olympics
* 1994 Played for Czech Republic at World Championships
* 1996 Won gold medal for Czech Republic at World Championships
* 1996 Played for Czech Republic at World Cup of Hockey

External links

*hockeydb|22630
* [http://www.nhl.com/lineups/player/8458266.html Statistics from NHL.com]

References