Archive for Interviews

Hockey people are, in general, pretty great. But goalie people are even a level above that in my experience. Generous with time and energy and information, and Dallas Stars goaltending coach Mike Valley is no different.

He took some time to chat with me mainly about his work with the Dallas AHL affiliate Texas Stars, though we also touched on Alex Auld being put on waivers today. Many many thanks for taking the time after a long road trip, Mike!

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IGM: You’ve had a lot of excitement lately in your goalie ranks, right? (Kari) Lehtonen traded to you and now (Alex) Auld is on waivers…

MV: Yeah, it has been interesting. You know, we acquired Lehtonen a couple of weeks ago and everybody was kind of wondering what was going to happen. And today (Stars GM) Joe (Nieuwendyk) decided to put Auldie on waivers and we’ll see what happens here.

Alex is a good goaltender, really good goaltender, and I have a feeling that somebody’s going to pick him up, but I guess we’ll find out what happens here in the next couple of days.

IGM: Let’s talk about your AHL guys. I’ve seen Matt Climie quite a bit because he came down and helped us out in the playoffs in Houston last season. And the Stars have come through Houston quite a bit. I find Climie gripping to watch because he’s got a “Zen” thing going on that I can’t put my finger on and I’ve wanted to talk to someone who knows his game well.

MV: He’s definitely is a good goaltender. He’s come a long way since his college days. He developed a lot last season and even more so this season. I think he’s doing a nice job of proving that he’s a top American League goaltender.

He’s got a lot of assets. One is he’s got really good size, and two, he plays with a lot of athleticism, so he’s not just strictly a blocking goaltender. He has kind of that good mix between having the ability to block when he needs to but also having the ability to play reactionary at times.

He’s a fun guy to watch. Like I said, he’s got the athleticism, he likes to handle the puck and has worked on it a lot this year and I think he’s getting better and better with it. Overall I think he’s a really good competitor. He doesn’t over-think situations, so he doesn’t let his mind get in his way. He just goes out and plays. And he has the ability to really step up and play some really, really big strong games. So he’s been good this year.

Matt Climie - Photo by Jason Villanueva

IGM: To start the season, he and (Brent) Krahn were literally the best goaltending tandem in the AHL and then Krahn got hurt (sports hernia surgery), and since then, I don’t know if it’s the team that’s slipped a little bit, if Climie’s game is off, or what’s going on but he hasn’t been AS good as the beginning of the season.

MV: It’s a combination of a bunch of things. I think one is, you know, you start the year and you have two goaltenders that weren’t getting easy nights by any means. They were still getting 40 shots a night. But you had two guys that were really battling it out with each other, so you put in Krahn on one game and he would stop 36 of 37. Then you got with Climie the next night and he would do the same.

So they were really battling each other for playing time, and any time you can create that situation, it’s SO good because it keeps guys sharp. Then Krahner got hurt, and Climie got the bulk of the net, and I don’t think it’s so much that his game changed. Maybe a little bit… maybe there’s a little bit more not a sense of entitlement, but he just knew he’d be the guy playing every day, which maybe takes a little bit of the edge off of you.

But I also think that, in saying that, that the team as a whole went through a little bit more of a tougher time. So I don’t think it’s just Matt Climie. The reality of it is, his numbers are still fantastic, he’s done really well. Like I said before, he’s still a top goalie in the American League.

IGM: How is Krahn doing anyway? I read that he’s back on the ice with you and maybe close to coming back?

MV: Yeah, he is close. I joined them during this Olympic break and we were on a road swing up through Hamilton, Syracuse and up to Toronto. And Krahner made that road trip as the third goalie, just for the purpose of practicing with me and he’s really gotten himself to the point where next week he’ll be jumping into team practices and hopefully he’ll be back in the net within the next 2-3 weeks.

Obviously it’s been a tough go for him because he was playing so well , and unfortunately, he’s faced a lot of injuries throughout his career and this was just something else he had to deal with. But he’s done a nice job kind of keeping himself fit and mentally sharp and hopefully he gets a good month of playing time here before the season’s over.

IGM: How often do you get to work with the AHL guys?

MV: I probably spend on average anywhere from 5-6 days with them a month. It’s kind of a good situation that we have here because, obviously we only have 3 hours driving time between Dallas and Austin.

And my situation is that I’m with the organization around 24-25 days a month and my wife and kids are still living up in Madison, WI. So I’m kind of going back and forth. But next year if I move down here, which it looks like, then there will probably be a little more time to spend with those young guys as well.

IGM: You’ve been pretty fortunate, as Climie’s been out some, too, with the backups that you’ve had. (4th round pick Richard) Bachman has apparently done really well, and even (Todd) Ford, who is not a Dallas prospect, right?

MV: Ford was a guy that we’ve called up and he’s played well. Bachman hasn’t had a ton of playing time. He’s gotten into 6 games now and he’s done well for himself.

He’s a college goaltender who did really well in the NCAA. But he’s just kind of learning the pro game and honing his skills. Our plan was to have him play as much as he could possibly play in the East Coast league (ECHL). And because of injuries he’s spent a little more time in the American League than we originally thought, but it’s been good because we’ve been able to see exactly what he can do.

IGM: Both Krahn and Climie are unrestricted free agents this year. So Bachman is potentially your guy next year, or do you think you’ll keep these guys around? Any idea yet?

MV: It’s going to be interesting. We like them both, and I’m speaking kind of for myself here, but I’d love to have them remain in the organization. They both have tremendous talent. And both of them are pushing to get an opportunity in the NHL.

Often those opportunities come via  somebody getting hurt or sick or whatever the issue is that comes up. But it’s tough for these guys–sometimes it takes a while to get your chance and when you get your chance, you want to have a guy that’s ready to play. Both Climes and Krahner are both guys that can step up and play.

IGM: Do you think some guys get labeled “journeymen” in the league and maybe they don’t get a chance due to that?

MV: I think so. I think that’s really accurate, because I think there’s a lot of times where you have guys that maybe you didn’t think could play that get a chance and all of a sudden they’re playing fantastic in the NHL.

You look in Houston at (Anton) Khudobin. Nobody really knew what he could do. I mean, last year he was in the East Coast league, came up during the playoffs, played well in the playoffs. And now he had an opportunity to play a couple of games in Minnesota. So it’s all about timing and opportunity and quite frankly for a goaltender, it’s a little bit of a different game playing in the NHL than it is in the American League. So it just goes back to getting a chance.

IGM: Speaking of Houston one of the issues we’ve had is basically just too many goalies. (Josh) Harding was supposed to be traded, (Wade) Dubielewicz was brought in, plus Khudobin and (Barry) Brust. And Brust has spent a good chunk of the season in the ECHL. And at least until Auld was put on waivers (assuming he’s picked up), how did you talk to the guys about that threat of possibly being crowded out and how to not let it affect their game?

Those are conversations you always have with the goaltenders. I think when you’re a younger goaltender, it’s easy to actually put your energy into thinking about that stuff. The more experienced guys, the guys that really have that strong mental strength, they really don’t put any energy towards that, because at the end of the day, you can’t control it anyhow.

I keep telling my goaltenders, “Control what you can control.” You have a trade tomorrow that brought 2 new goaltenders into the organization and who knows what can happen. But the reality is, there’s nothing you can do to control that situation.

So the only thing that they can do is go out every day and work as hard as they can and play as good as they can. And if you start thinking about what can happen tomorrow and the different scenarios, then I think you lose that edge that you need to be an effective goalie.

(RSS readers click through to see video, please)

Kevin Woodley is a rec-league target and former contributing editor of the Goalie News. He has written about the Vancouver Canucks and NHL for The Associated Press, USA Today, Sports Illustrated and The Hockey News for the last decade, and is currently at the Olympics for AP.

Kipper’s Teammates OK with groundbreaking Finnish goalie’s “start me or else” ultimatum – he’s earned it.

Mikka Kiprusoff will be the starting goaltender for Finland in Vancouver at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Photo by David Hutchison.

Much was made in the media about Miikka Kiprusoff’s “start me or else” ultimatum to the Finnish Ice Hockey Federation in late November. So now, on the eve of his country’s Olympic opener, as he walks into Finland’s dressing room to face his teammates, does Kiprusoff himself think the whole thing was overblown at all?

“It’s been pretty clear for me so I really didn’t care,” Kiprusoff responded on Tuesday night after the Finns practiced for Wednesday’s game against Belarus.

It’s vintage Kiprusoff, short and to the point when he talks at all, sometimes at the expense of his own reputation in the press. It was the same four years earlier, when the stoic Finn opted out of the 2006 Winter Games in Turin with claims he needed to rest a sore hip, a public relations disaster when he didn’t miss a start for the Calgary Flames the rest of the season, even drawing the ire of a few fellow Finns. The locker room now, though, is a different story.

“They all said ‘hi’ to me when I came in so I guess they are all right with it,” he said with a wry smile when asked if the ultimatum was an issue. “Ask them.”

Turns out they are fine with it too, and while no one expected his teammates to raise a stink at the Olympics, the sentiment seems sincere – as long as Kiprusoff continues to stop the puck at an all-worldly rate. His ability to do so in Calgary this season was what made his ultimatum a non-issue with coaches.

“It was pretty simple when we started to know he was playing well this season and he would be the guy,” said coach Jukka Jalonen. “Okay, if he hadn’t played so well, maybe we would ask him to come as a backup or take somebody else. I don’t know, but he was our first choice and he’s a great first choice.”

Kiprusoff’s numbers in Calgary bear that out, including the NHL’s fourth-best goals-against average (2.18) and sixth best save percentage (92.5%) behind a Flames team still prone to long periods of the defensive ineptitude that plagued them the last two seasons. Jalonen said Kiprusoff will start Wednesday against Belarus, Niklas Backstrom of the Minnesota Wild will play on Friday against Germany, and “from then on the plan is that Kiprusoff is playing.” That means Antero Niittymaki, who backstopped Finland to silver at the 2006 Winter Games in Turin and has been one of the NHL’s hottest goaltenders over the last month for the Tampa Bay Lightning, won’t play a game in Vancouver.

“The goalies know what the situation is, what their roles are and there’s no problems,” said Jalonen. “I know Kiprusoff, what kind of guy he is, and he’s always been a starting goalie so it’s understandable if he doesn’t want to be a backup or third goalie. I don’t have any problem with that.”

That’s easy for a coach to say, but the fact that his fellow goalies appear to share that sentiment may have less to do with Kiprusoff’s statistics this season, and more to do with his status as a groundbreaker for Finland’s puck-stopping peers.

Kiprusoff first commanded the NHL spotlight by leading the Flames to the Stanley Cup final in 2004 before losing to Tampa Bay in seven games, and won the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goaltender in 2006. He wasn’t the first Finnish goalie in the NHL, but his play made it easier for others to follow. That includes Backstrom, who made his NHL debut in 2006 at the age of 28 after 10 seasons playing professionally in his native Finnish leagues.

“All the Finnish goalies talk to him, send texts to him because he opened a lot of eyes here to see the Finnish goalie can play well here, can win, can take your team to the Finals,” Backstrom said of Kiprusoff. “Without that we probably wouldn’t have that many Finnish goalies in the league, and all Finnish goalies know we needed someone to play really well so everybody believes in us.”

Today there are seven Finnish goalies in the 30-team NHL – eight if recently traded Kari Lehtonen, a former second-overall draft pick, ever gets healthy. That’s an impressive number given forwards and defensemen account for more than 90 per cent of the roster space in the league; even more so given Finland has only produced 20 players currently filling those other positions.

There are three Finns in the top-5 in NHL goals-against average, including Antti Niemi and Tuuka Rask, a rookie who has displaced U.S. Olympic goalie Tim Thomas as the No.1 in Boston and leads the NHL with a 2.08 goals-against average.

Rookie Tukka Rask is the latest Finnish goalie to take the NHL by storm. He currently leads the NHL in GAA and sits fourth in save percentage. Photo by Scott Slingsby.

“It’s pretty amazing we have 5 million people and the amount of goaltenders we are producing right now in the NHL,” said veteran Finnish forward Saku Koivu. “It’s a huge, huge advantage for us.”

It’s an advantage the Finns recognized two decades ago they needed to compete on the international stage. With that in mind, they began a program targeting young goalies for position-specific instruction in the late 1980s and early ‘90s – shortly after Patrick Roy and Francois Allaire began to revolutionize the approach to puck stopping in Montreal, and long before it other teams in the NHL recognized the need for goaltending coaches. It began with the club teams in the Finnish SM Liiga, the top professional circuit, who made sure there were goalie coaches available to the feeder teams right down to the lowest levels, and that those coaches were teaching the same thing to 10-year-olds as to 10-year pros.

Those regional goalie coaches were then brought together annually by the Finnish Ice Hockey Federation – not to tell them how to teach, but to share ideas and information as the science and technique of goaltending began to evolve rapidly. The results 20 years later speak for themselves – both in the quality of Finnish goaltending and in the style differences among goalies from each region.

“Everyone is really proud of the system we have back home in Finland getting goalies over here,” said Backstrom, who was in Turin in 2006 but never got to play. “We’re not the biggest country so it’s nice to see. But it’s hard work and you need a couple guys to play well and open the doors for the rest of us.”

That someone was Kiprusoff, which makes it easier for the other goalies to accept opening the door – this time to the bench – for him in Vancouver.

Kevin Woodley is a rec-league target and former contributing editor of the Goalie News. He has written about the Vancouver Canucks and NHL for The Associated Press, USA Today, Sports Illustrated and The Hockey News for the last decade, and is currently at the Olympics for AP.Last night after the game Luongo spoke with the Media about the game:

Although Luongo is obviously very familiar with playing in GM Place, last night was a different experience as he described the great atmosphere in the building and the support of the home crowd:

”The fans were great and I was really pumped up to play in front of them and obviously they were very supportive the whole game,” smiled Luongo after a 15-save performance that forced him to be Luongo-eske twice at most.

“There was much more electricity in the air, this is big for Canada and for Vancouver, you definitely felt the electricity, kind of felt like a playoff game.”

There obviously wasn’t as much action for him last night against a team that didn’t have any NHL players in the lineup:

“There’s not a lot of action, but I think I was more tired skating to the bench for penalties and skating out to the corners to play the puck than anything else,” joked Luongo, who is now 2-1-0 in Olympic play dating back to the 2006 Games in Torino.

Martin Brodeur will be in the net on Thursday at 4:30 PST vs. Jonas Hiller and Switzerland. Luongo was asked what his expectations are after that and if coach Mike Babcock has let them know what his plan is:

“I spoke to Babs a few weeks ago and he told me we’d be splitting the first few games and he said after that we’ll see,” said Luongo. “For me, I’m just focused on doing my job and if I get the tap, I’ll be ready to go.

“I’m not here to prove anything, I’m here to help the team and the country the best way I can, for me it was special to play in front of the fans tonight and I was really happy with the way things went.”