The last time InGoal caught up with highly touted Los Angeles backup Jonathan Bernier, he was coming off an up and down rookie season with the Kings, one that improved decidedly after adjusting some practice expectations, and coming a little further out of his crease midway through.

Bernier’s second season was a struggle as well, but only to find playing time behind Vezina Trophy finalist Jonathan Quick.

Just because he only played 16 games – a career low at any level – doesn’t mean the 23-year-old wasn’t still looking to improve. In addition to how he dealt with all the down time, Bernier’s evolution included a slightly altered glove position, which was the first question InGoal posed to him after practice during the first round of the playoffs for this Ask A Pro segment:

The question came from InGoal Facebook Fan Cody Osborne: Your glove position is unique to most NHL goalies in that it is kept high, but not palm down. What drills do you focus on to keep it high when making crease movements and butterfly slides?

Bernier worked hard, with some help form his goaltending coaches, to keep the glove up even when he was down. (Ken Denardo photo)

Bernier: “When I was younger I kept it really low, so I’m just trying to get a better presentation with my glove, so it looks bigger and that space doesn’t look too big up there. Having a goalie coach around definitely helps you with that. It’s not so much specific drills as it is maintaining it in all drills, and it’s more when you are getting tired that you start forgetting and old habits start to come back. And that’s when [Kings goaltending coach Bill Ranford] would remind me to keep it up. Once you get used to it, you don’t really think about it any more. But if it’s down, he can tell you right away.”

~ InGoal reader Jack Hardwick asks: Why are your toe ties so different; why did you modify them?

Bernier: “My toe tie is anchored on the far inside edge of the toe bridge, it’s fixed, and I tie four knots in the lace between the pad and where it ties to the skate. In my Memorial Cup year I had a high ankle sprain, so I had to modify it, and this way my skate doesn’t go up as high [towards the middle of the pad] because it’s anchored on the inside, closer to the ice. There’s not many goalies that wear it like that, but usually if it’s in the middle of the pad your ankle kind of goes higher. And for me, my ankle never really recovered as good as I wanted to so I had to make that adjustment on my pad.”

~ Mark Ferrante asks through the InGoal Facebook page: How do you decide on which pads to use? And how long does it take to break them in?

Bernier: “I live 15 minutes from where [former Koho and current Reebok equipment guru Michel] Lefevre makes the pads, so I kind of help him out on stuff I like and change a little things. I’ve been going there since I was in Pee Wee. I was in Koho before and just stuck with Lefevre. … And it usually takes me about a week to break my pads in.”

~ InGoal reader Richie Jiaravanon asks: What mods do you have in your equipment and why?

Bernier has a long-standing relationship with Reebok gear guru Michel Lefevre. (Ken Denardo photo)

Bernier: “I’ve always had just one strap, not two, going through knee stacks and it is attached on the outside of the pad below the knee rather than wrapping around it, and I’ve always had one less strap on the lower leg [both of which are now standard features on the new Reebok P4]. I have a single break on the outer roll, and a second upper break on the face of the pad, but not a second break on the outer roll. So I still have a little bit of flex, but not as much. I attach the inner Velcro strap around my knee instead of down to the outside of the calf [like Carey Price does]. I also felt like the inner layer of the knee [where it lands] comes up a little, so I put Velcro right to the edge of the stack to hold it down so the end piece wouldn’t pull up. This way it feels a little more solid.

“As for the blocker, it’s standard, and the gloves are actually the 590 break with a one-piece cuff. And yes, I have a practice glove. Drew [Doughty] likes the glove side and he can shoot it (laughs) so I think it helps, especially when you start and your hands are cold and you don’t want to get injurted in practice. Usually you have two gloves anyway, so you just beef one up so it doesn’t hurt. It’s pretty hard to close – I don’t even think I can really close it – but it’s just for practice.”

Los Angeles Kings goaltender Jonathan Bernier (Ken Denardo photo)

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Mike Smith is coming up big in Phoenix, and looking big in his Reebok 11K chest and arm protector.

Mike Smith continues to come up huge for the Coyotes, carrying them to the second round with a virtuoso 39-save performance for his first playoff shutout on Monday night, eliminating a talented Chicago team by positing a .950 save percentage to give Phoenix its first ever postseason series victory.

Smith’s story is a good one. Demoted to the AHL by Tampa Bay last season before being called back up and shining in a brief playoff relief appearance and start, Smith signed a two-year, $4-million free agent deal in the desert, and flourished behind the familiar system of his old Dallas coach Dave Tippett, and a new system in goal implemented by Coyotes goalie coach Sean Burke.

In a nutshell, Burke re-invented himself and resurrected his career in Phoenix under goalie coach Benoit Allaire, who since moved on to coach in New York, where his style preferences can be seen in Rangers star Henrik Lundqvist. Look close and you’ll see Burke has brought a similar “deep, goal line out” approach to Smith with the Coyotes, simplifying and shortening his movements to rely more on his massive frame — but without turning him into a blocking robot.

Smith, who has great natural athleticism, still reacts with the best of them, and he’s free to go outside the butterfly box when needed, as evidenced by a brilliant pad stack this season.

InGoal Magazine has a complete review of the Reebok 11K Chest-and-Arm Protection worn by Mike Smith - and its more mobile P4 counterpart Reebok added as an option.

All of which makes Smith the perfect example for one of the recent equipment reviews from InGoal Magazine: The new Reebok P4 Chest and Arm Protection. The review focused not just on the P4 as a more mobile alternative for goalies that relied on agility, but also on the bigger 11K model that provides a perfect counterpart for goalie that desires a bigger look. Given how big and imposing Smith looks in his 11K it’s also interesting to note it hasn’t cost him reactivity, or restricted his ability to handle the puck, something he does as well as anyone in the NHL.

Be sure to read the full Reebok C/A review to find out which one is for you.

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The 2012 Summer Camp edition of InGoal Magazine is here, with 84 pages designed to make you a better goaltender. (Click here to go straight to it).

There are too many highlights to list them, but each is designed to improve your game.

They include:

FEATURES

- Detroit All Star Jimmy Howard explains how parenthood helped his mental game.

- Dallas Stars goalie Richard Bachman’s drills to improve vision and puck tracking.

- Canadiens star Carey Price’s secret stick tweaking tips for better puck handling.

Equipment Reviews

- Bauer’s TotalONE changing game with pads that can adjust on the fly to your style.

- Warrior Ritual for Youth and Kids an impressive chip off the pro gear block.

- Reebok’s new P4 chest-and-arm provides mass-or-mobility alternatives.

INSTRUCTION

- Dallas Stars Goalie Coach Mike Valley on the importance of good visual habits are key.

- Rochester Americans Goalie Coach Bob Janosz simplifies the puck-playing process.

- Bandits Goalie School director Stan Matwijiw outlines positioning in one simple diagram.

- Former Senators goalie coach on staying down to simplify when attack moves behind net.

- Former Bruins goalie coach Brian Daccord offers 10 main keys to goaltending success.

- Maria Mountain of Revolution Conditioning helps prepare a proper summer training plan.

Be sure to check it out cover to cover and then come back and let us know what you think in the comments below.

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Updated: Game photos from Scott Slingsby, Slingsby Images

Tim Thomas wore a pair of these Warrior pads for the first time in the Bruins final regular season game.

In what was a surprise to even the people that made them, Tim Thomas broke out a new pair of Warrior Ritual pads for the Boston Bruins’ final game of the regular season on Saturday afternoon.

If the fact Thomas tried something new isn’t a surprise – he has worn everything under the sun over the years, including a new set of unbranded pads from Chris Piku just three weeks ago – breaking them out in the final game before the playoff is.

Thomas even surprised the guys at Warrior, who expected him to try the pads over the summer, not the final playoff tune up.

That Thomas is trying Warrior isn’t a total shock, however. Among the many brands he’s worn in the past was an unbranded set of Smith pads, which were made by Pete Smith, who took over as Warrior’s designer last summer and launched the new Ritual pads.

In fact many wondered if the mystery pads Thomas wore in training camp were also new Warriors. It turned out they too were made by Piku, and as InGoal was the first to report that day, Piku also claimed to heavily modify the Vaughn equipment Thomas wore to win the Stanley Cup, Vezina and Conn Smythe Trophy last season. Thomas stuck with the Reebok blocker until switching to Piku in March, but the Warrior Ritual pads were not modified before being approved by Kay Whitmore at the NHL offices.

InGoal Magazine was the first to get a set of the Warrior Rituals for review, and the results were impressive. Be sure to read the review in the December edition of the magazine, and check out the video reviews of the pads and gloves below. And check out Warrior’s new customizer, which launched this week, to design a set of your own. With more color zones than anyone else, we’re pretty sure you can come up with something more adventurous than Thomas. For him, just wearing them at this time of year is adventure enough.

Warrior Ritual pad video review:

Warrior Ritual gloves video review:

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It is not a secret or a surprise how important confidence is to any goaltender.

It is shocking, however, the way Steve Mason rediscovered his.

The beleaguered Columbus Blue Jackets goaltender credits a switch to bigger equipment for his best stretch of the last three seasons, a run that had the 23-year-old eager to return Saturday in Vancouver despite still having 23-stitches – in multiple layers – in his blocker hand from a skate cut all the way down to the bone that forced him to miss three games.

“The adrenaline kind of takes away whatever pain is there,” Mason said after making 34 saves – several of them impressive — during a 4-3 loss to the Canucks Saturday night.

Mason knows something about pain. As he told InGoal Magazine two days earlier, playing hurt had become an everyday occurrence before updating the undersized equipment he’d been wearing since junior hockey in early February. Mason was 1-7-1 with a .880 save percentage in 10 starts before the switch, but went 7-3-1 with a .922 after increasing the size of his pants and chest-arm protection to better fit his 6-foot-4, 217-pound frame. (Contrary to other reports, Mason said his leg pads are not bigger, just a bit stiffer so they don’t break down as fast).

 The increased gear size, which was allowed only after consultation with the NHL’s top goalie cop, Kay Whitmore, isn’t just about adding blocking surface, though that helps too. Shockingly, Mason said the biggest issue is he was getting hurt in the smaller gear – to the point he actually started turning away from high shots to try and lessen some of the impact.

“If you are getting hit by pucks and it’s hurting, it’s human nature to kind of turn away from it and not really square up as much as you can,” Mason said. “You’d almost try and turn to cushion it. That’s not the way to play the game and with the new stuff it’s given me the peace of mind to face the shot square on and that’s the way the position is supposed to be played.”

Mason said the models he wears haven’t changed, just the sizing, with the bigger pants worn “really, really loose” but still allowing him to tuck in a larger chest protector. The difference is now it doesn’t pull it tight to his torso. The looser fit leaves air between the gear and body to cushion the blow, whereas before it was like bulletproof vest – it may save your life, but you’re going to feel it. Mason used to finish practice with bruises all over his ribs, but said there is more, thicker padding along the outer edge of his new chest-arm unit, whereas the older one was “pretty much just like fabric” along the outside and over the side of his rib cage.

“You should have seen me some days, my entire rib cage would be black and blue,” Mason said. “For sure it affects your confidence … We play Nashville six times a year with Shea Weber shooting the puck over 100 miles an hour and when you’re getting that in the ribs and the equipment is not taking the brunt of the force, that’s pretty uncomfortable … A lot of times on pucks up (at the shoulder) I would turn away because it hurt and that’s human nature. Now I just face it square on, and if it hits you so be it, the padding will take the force.”

Mason said the upper “wings” of his new chest-arm protection – the part that comes up from the chest to cover the shoulders – is stiffer now, with more, improved shoulder cap protection underneath both, eliminating the shots he’d feel off the edge of the shoulder, and pushing those chest “wings” forward, again providing a cushion between the body to reduce impact.

Turning away from shots not only made Mason appear smaller but it also often left more of the net exposed if the puck was tipped and he’d already surrendered his “square-ness” to the puck’s path. Now not only does he looks bigger because he’s staying square, but he feels bigger too, something he noticed right away with the new gear back on Feb. 11.

“My first game in the new gear there was a play where I was down and moving to my right and my arm was out a bit and I was still able to get a piece of the puck, where before I knew for sure that was going in the net,” said Mason, who had won four straight before the Canucks loss. “But it got a bit of my arm, dropped down in front of my pad and was an easy cover up.”

The four-game winning streak was his longest in more than a calendar year, and Mason credits the new equipment for playing a big role in an improving mindset.

Columbus Goalie Coach Ian Clark

So what took so long? Mason said he simply wasn’t aware he was wearing smaller gear than the new rules allowed, and after trying to make so many other changes in his game, it took a while for new goalie coach Ian Clark to convince him to switch his gear too.

Mason, who was hearing talk the Blue Jackets may buy out the final year of his contract next season, is glad he finally did, and may force them to think twice with this late run.

“It gives you more confidence out there,” Mason said of the gear swap. “It just seems in general you look bigger, gives the guys less to look at when they are coming down the wing and any time you can have a competitive advantage like that it definitely helps.”

Especially when it also means you no longer have to flinch on every shot.

—-

Equipment is far from the only adjustment Mason has made after struggling miserably for two seasons after his Rookie of the Year campaign in 2008-09. It’s been a hard road mentally – and sometimes hard to remember he’s just 23 – but Mason talked candidly with InGoal about the adjustments on and off the ice. Look for more in the next digital magazine in April.

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In today’s matinee vs. Philadelphia, won 3-2 by the Bruins, goalie gear aficionados will have noticed a significant change to Boston goaltender Tim Thomas’ equipment. Wearing the non-branded mystery pads and glove that InGoal first reported on in the pre-season, today Thomas added a change to the blocker he has always remained faithful to and told InGoal just fit his game better than the one that matched the Vaughn gear he wore at the time - completing the set with a new unbranded one today.

Thomas has tried versions of this gear throughout the season, always returning to his old equipment, suggesting he has struggled to get the new brand dialed-in – but today he appeared in a complete set for the first time.

Thanks as always to InGoal’s Scott Slingsby for the timely photography.

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Montreal Canadiens goalie Peter Budaj is wearing the new Bauer TotalONE

InGoal Magazine was lucky enough to get a complete in-person overview of Bauer’s new TotalONE line months before it made its NHL debut on New York Rangers’ star Henrik Lundqvist at the Winter Classic.

Now we’ve got a set of our own to test.

The results of those on-ice workouts will be published in the April edition of InGoal’s digital magazine, but many of our readers already got a sneak peak of the revolutionary new pads in the February edition.

There are several new features in the line, but none is bigger than the ability to adjust the stiffness of the two breaks at and above the knee with interchangeable rods, a potentially game-changing feature that could become to goalie pads what moveable weights are to drivers in the golf industry. In addition to being able to try different pad set ups without buying a new set each time — each break can have three different settings, ranging from soft and flexible to stiff as a board — this development, which was five years in the making, should allow goalies to extend the life of their pads. That’s because most pads start to “break down” or get too soft at the breaks, and by simply inserting new rods it should refresh the pads. Add in a moveable knee cradle and parents of even the fastest-growing kids may be able to get more than a single season out of these new Bauer pads.

Look for a complete breakdown of the entire line, its numerous new features, and how they perform on the ice in the April magazine, and in the meantime check out the last issue for more sneak peak details, and the pictures below to get a more detailed idea how the new Bauer TotalONE pads look in person (and, yes, those are metal buckles):

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InGoal's review of Reebok's new P4 details all the increased coverage features, and more leg channel options than ever before.

When InGoal Magazine got its first in-person look at the new P4 line inside NHL locker rooms during the pre-season, it was quickly evident there were some big changes in the new model, including some that intrigued the league’s top stoppers into switching. But it wasn’t until an invitation to a special launch at a hockey trade show later in October that InGoal got a true sense of how deep the new innovations and new options ran.

Now, after testing a set of our own the last month, and with the highly anticipated P4 set to hit the open market, we are pleased to share those secrets with our fellow goalies.

Tighter leg channels, like the one Carey Price uses, are among the new options in the P4 line. (InGoal photo by Scott Slingsby)

Read the in-depth review of the new P4 in the latest edition of InGoal Magazine, and be sure to enter The Hockey Shop’s contest for a chance to win a set of your own. And if you’ve already entered once, be sure to “like” their Facebook page for a bonus entry.

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With the new Ritual stick, Warrior went to great technological lengths to achieve the feel of wood in a composite stick.

The resistance is due in large part because they don’t want to sacrifice the feel of foam core (only a couple still use a true wood stick), a hesitation that includes not wanting to add the feel of stingers on hard shots turned aside by a composite goal stick.

After a lot of research, Warrior may have finally come up with an answer.

They call it, quite simply, ShockaTech, but there is nothing simple about it.

In essence Warrior has eliminated the wave lengths that the human hand is most sensitive to in the place where goalies hold the stick, resulting in better feel and fewer stingers. It’s a lot of technology to fit into a stick weighing in at less than two pounds, resulting in less blocker hand fatigue over a game, and with composite sticks less likely than wood to break down over time because they won’t soften as they get wet on the ice, the higher price point is offset by the increased durability.

InGoal took an in-depth look at the new stick in the latest edition of the digital magazine, and we’re also pleased to have team with Warrior Hockey to give you the chance to win one of three of you own, complete with a personalized name plate.

Be sure to check out both, and check back here at the InGoalMag.com as we update reviews for durability and playability over time.

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Vancouver backup Cory Schneider raised a few eyebrows and turned a few heads at the Canucks’ morning skate Thursday when he rolled out wearing a new set of customized Reebok P4 pads.

Even Detroit All-Star Jimmy Howard, who wears Vaughn equipment, popped his head out of the locker room to take a look.

Schneider also typically wears Vaughn, at least on his legs. His gloves have long been Reebok, and he recently switched to the new P4 model in games (he is wearing the older P3 version in these pictures because they are his practice set, complete with the thicker-palmed glove NHL goalies typically use to avoid stingers while facing hundreds of shots from teammates).

Schneider has always preferred stiffer gloves and softer pads, and maintained in conversations with InGoal that his “mutt” look wouldn’t change just for a sponsorship, smartly insisting he’ll always make more money stopping pucks than looking good doing so. So the switch is far from written in stone, but the fact he’s trying Reebok for the first time — and suffering some good natured heat from playing partner Roberto Luongo, a long-time Reebok goalie for doing so — says something about the customization options available in the new P4 line, including a softer boot break and a variety of inner leg channel options.

InGoal will have a complete breakdown of Reebok’s new P4 line and options in the second edition of our magazine, coming out Monday. In the meantime, enjoy these photos of Schneider’s P4 test run from the Canucks’ morning skate Thursday (and don’t forget to enter our contest, brought to you by the Hockey Shop, to win your own set of Reebok P4 equipment):

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