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Anton Khudobin, happy and hard to beat, stars for Gulls
26 марта 2016 года. Harms, Rob. The San Diego Union-Tribune

 March 26--Every player, Dallas Eakins said, faces a choice.

"You make the choice when you walk in the rink," Eakins, the Gulls' coach, said at the Poway Ice Arena after Thursday's practice. "And we're all walking into the rink every day with different circumstances -- maybe your kids are sick, maybe you had a fight with your wife, maybe you've been sent down. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter what's going on. We all understand your circumstance. But when you come in here we want everyone to have a positive effect and influence on the others."

Maybe you've been sent down. This choice, perhaps, is even more pronounced for a player reassigned from the NHL to the AHL, as several Ducks players have been this season.

One of them was Anton Khudobin, the organization's smiling 29-year-old goalie who has 99 games of NHL experience and has been shuttled back and forth between Anaheim and San Diego this season.

"I've seen it -- not with this team -- but I've seen it with other teams where guys come in and they've got the dark cloud over their head for whatever reason and it starts sucking the life out of your team," Eakins said. "And he hasn't brought that here. And I think that has a lot to do with his success."

Eakins, of course, was talking about Khudobin, who is 17-6 with a 2.48 goals against average in 27 games for the Gulls this season, as they enter a two-game series against the San Jose Barracuda this weekend, starting Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

Khudobin, or "Dobbie," as people around the team call him, has been one of the most significant reasons for the Gulls' late-season surge. They have won 14 of their past 19 games and jumped the Texas Stars for second place in the Pacific Division. Khudobin has been in net for 16 of those games, and thrived.

"He stops the puck," Eakins said simply. "When it comes to coaches and goaltending style, it's either: You stop the puck, or you don't. His work with our goalie coach has been excellent, and I think he's just settled in to a real, calm, non-busy game. And that's what I always look for in goalie: Is he busy in the net? Is he kind of all over the place? And he's not; he's under control."

Off the ice, too. Khudobin, from Kazakhstan, has fit in with players younger than him, and older than him, to become a mentor of sorts.

"I think I always have a good attitude," Khudobin said. "I don't know, just go there and have fun. And, you know, try to help guys to learn. Because there are a lot of young guys."

"He's a happy guy," Eakins added. "He's always got a smile on his face. He enjoys coming to the rink, he enjoys the guys, he enjoys the game, and when you've got that kind of attitude, it's infectious."

Khudobin's mantra is simple: "Just go and have fun." And that, of course, is a choice.

Страничка Антона Худобина на сайте "Звёзды с Востока"

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