It was not an easy year to be a goaltender in the Montreal Canadiens organization, unless your name is Antti Niemi. For Charlie Lindgren, this year was supposed to be his coming out party. Many assumed he would take over the Habs backup role, or at the very least, light up the AHL similar to that of his rookie season. What happened instead could only be described as growing pains for the 24-year-old netminder, even with his solid NHL numbers.
With Carey Price and Al Montoya suffering concussions over the course of this season, Lindgren had 14 NHL starts where he posted two out of the four shutouts the Canadiens recorded this year.