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Carolina Hurricanes Blast From The Past: Trevor Kidd
This week’s Carolina Hurricanes takes a look at the Carolina Hurricanes’ first-ever backup goaltender, Trevor Kidd.
The Carolina Hurricanes have a long and storied history when it comes to backup goaltenders. I’m not really sure if it’s due to the Hurricanes or just the odd nature of a job where you only work about 15 times a year. Players like Kevin Weeks or Michael Leighton; heck even Cam Ward started out as the backup goaltender. More recently, Eddie Lack serves as the backup. His is a more tragic story though about the dark path of taco addiction and I hear he’s in deep with the cartels. But this story is about Trevor Kidd the guy who started it all.
Early Career
The Calgary Flames drafted Trevor Kidd eleventh overall in the 1990 draft. Going into the draft analysts ranked Trevor Kidd as the number one overall over a couple of guys named Martin Brodeur and Felix Potvin. That was the last time the NHL heard of those two ever again. Jaromir Jagr was also a part of that draft, and Doug Weight and Keith Tkachuk. Tkachuk was the NHL record holder for “Most Russian Sounding Name to Actually be American,” until Alexander Galchenyuk stole the crown in 2012.
Kidd shared the crease with several goaltenders over his time in Calgary: Mike Vernon, Rick Tabaracci, and Dwayne Roloson. After his first year, Kidd received the majority of the starts but never enough to lay claim to the Flames number one goaltender. Posting a career .898 SV% was probably the number one reason for his coaches hesitancy to designate him the starting goaltender.
Trade to the Hurricanes
Before the start of the 1997-98 season, Calgary traded Trevor Kidd to the Carolina Hurricanes for Jean-Sebastian Giguere and Andrew Cassels. Seriously I think I sever a piece of my Canes soul every time I discover each one of these awful trades like I’m creating some weird sort of hockey Horcrux. Ok back to Trevor Kidd. So Kidd came on board and served as the backup to Sean Burke during the Hurricanes first season. Kidd actually played pretty well for that awful team and posted a .922 SV%
The next year Burke left in free agency and the Hurricanes brought in Arturs Irbe to share time with Kidd. That must have been a blow to Kidd’s ego after his great season because his numbers in his second year with the Canes were awful. He only played 25 games and posted a severely underwhelming .905 SV%.
The next offseason the NHL had an expansion draft for the creation of the Atlanta Thrashers, and
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the Hurricanes exposed Kidd. Sure enough following fine Thrashers tradition they selected Kidd and then traded him for even worse players most of who barely saw any NHL action. Guess who the sharp hockey mind leading the Thrashers was? If you said current Gale Force Holdings president Don Waddell well you win the knowledge that being a Canes fan is the purest form of Masochism. Perhaps the most lasting part of Kidd’s career with the Carolina Hurricanes franchise is the fact that somebody actually made an action figure out of him. Just look at those pads! If anybody wants to get me a Christmas present well there you go.
Life after living in the Eye of the Storm
Trevor Kidd would go on to play three more seasons for the Florida Panthers and then two more with the Toronto Maple Leafs after that. He never would be a starting goaltender for either team. The Panthers had a young Robert Luongo and the Leafs Ed Belfour. The lockout pretty much ended Kidd’s career because afterward he was unable to secure an NHL job and ended up playing a season in Europe.
Trevor Kidd may not have been a very good goalie, but he was good enough to enjoy a fifteen-year career in the NHL. And while he doesn’t have very many accolades, other than his Olympic silver medal in hockey, he does have the honor of being the Carolina Hurricanes very first backup goaltender. Nobody will ever be able to take that away from him. So hold your head up high Trevor Kidd as Canes fans around the world salute you! ( I think we have one fan in Sweden and another in Canada that counts as around the world right?)
