Nathan Lawson picked up his 13th win of the season with a 2-1 overtime victory over the Manchester Monarchs.

With the victory, the Sound Tigers are now (30-27-3-6) and are in fifth place in the Atlantic Division with 69 points. Manchester (34-22-3-5) gained a point and remains in third place in the Atlantic Division with 76 points

(Click on Sound Tigers vs Monarchs to view more shots of the game.)

Nathan Lawson

Lawson, who earned the game’s second star, stopped 26 Manchester shots for his 13th win of the year (13-12-3). Lawson got help from defenseman Jake Gannon, who scored for the second time this season with what seemed like a routine shot on goal that beat Bernier to the far side. Jon Gleed scored his first goal when he deflected the puck into the net off a shot from left wing Trevor Smith.

Sound Tigers goalie Nathan Lawson (52) watches the puck come back into play after hitting the crossbar in the third period. Photo by Scott Slingsby

Sound Tigers goalie Nathan Lawson (52) is positioned to grab a first period slapshot. Photo by Scott Slingsby

Jonathan Bernier

Bernier (26-17-5) took his 17th loss of the season with 28 saves on 30 shot. Manchester’s lone goal came when Corey Elkins (19) blasted a shot from the right face-off circle and sent the puck top shelf on Bridgeport’s goaltender Nathan Lawson.

Monarchs' goalie Jonathan Bernier (45) prepares to stop the Sound Tigers LW Jesse Joensuu in the second period. Photo by Scott Slingsby

Monarchs' Goalie Jonathan Bernier (45) watches a second period rebound go between defenseman Andrew Campbell (2) and Sound Tigers forward Jeremy Reich (17). Photo by Scott Slingsby

Thoughts on Raising a Goaltender

It can be difficult being the parent of an athlete. The emotional bond between parent and child automatically leads to great passion and caring. At times this leads to overprotection, occasional overestimation of talent, and sometimes overpressing when great opportunities present themselves. A caring parent who only wishes the best for his child can find it a great challenge to achieve the subtle task of encouraging the values of sport without pushing. As if this challenge of being the “ideal” sports parent is not tough enough, perhaps you are the parent of a goaltender…

Goaltenders themselves have been called many things over the years, strange, different, misunderstood, weird, crazy…one can only wonder what labels should be put on a goaltender’s parent. While many of the tenets of good sports parenting remain the same for mothers and fathers of goalies (i.e. support, have only positives to say at the game, let the coach coach, etc.), the uniqueness of the position and perhaps the passion of its players provide unique challenges and opportunities.

Great sports parenting begins with allowing the athlete’s passion to lead the way. The athlete that has a clear voice in what to play and when to play this lays a great foundation to make the most out of every sporting experience. Once the decision to play has been made, the parent’s role is to support, to nurture the passion, and to protect. Doing these things alone begin to position the athlete for a positive hockey experience. This being said, there are added specifics that a parent can keep in mind to allow their child to maximize enjoyment and ultimately performance in the crease.

First, keep it simple. Give your child the opportunity to learn the basics of goaltending correctly, not much more prior to the teenage years. It is true that specialized coaching is often needed for goaltenders. There are many junior and high school coaches that struggle working with goaltenders. Their having a sound understanding of basic and advanced technique for young netminders can be a lot to expect. Goaltending “gurus” are certainly valuable to your athlete’s development. This being said, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Too often the caring parent, over-cares and provides private lessons to excess. This too often only provides frustration to the athlete, parent, and coach. The young athlete needs to learn the basics to avoid bad habits. Yet just as importantly needs opportunities to play, time to develop, enjoyment of competition, and rest. Learning the basics of goaltending and mastering them in competition is sufficient at almost all levels of play.

Next, get the focus on enjoying playing today’s game. Young goaltenders are a passionate bunch for a variety of reasons. There are a lot of unique things about the position that inspire curiosity and enthusiasm. The equipment-most often the masks. Whether fierce or friendly, bold or basic, bruised or in pristine conditions, helmet artwork gets kids (and adults talking). The opportunity for great saves and glory inspire energy. YouTubed videos of great saves by goalies from the NHL through minor hockey can be watched for hours by young players. This enthusiasm is terrific. However, do not allow the efforts, discipline, and persistence on-ice that led to opportunities for great paint jobs and great saves get lost along the way. A wise parent creates a focus on the acts of “playing” hockey. This perhaps is the most difficult aspect of sports parenting. In essence, the parental role is to teach values without pushing. It is easy for a parent to lecture about hard work and to constantly remind a child to listen to his goalie coach. Unfortunately, due to uniqueness of a blood relationship these messages are lost and over time fall on deaf ears. The key to a parent teaching athletic values is to subtly ask the young athlete to consider the practices and perspectives that led to the glitz and glory. Furthermore, model the language and attitudes sought. So often it is these actions that teach children the most.

Lastly, support and protect. Enthusiastic kids want to play all day and every day. Encourage time off away from the rink to rest, recover, and re-energize. It is better to leave the rink with a child wanting more rather than leaving with a child that wished he had never shown up in the first place. Furthermore, coaches are always in need of goalies, but do not always know how to use them. Protect your child from serving simply as a target for the shooters of too many teams over the course of too many weeks. It is great to see a lot of pucks, but when the technique and body break down, the young athlete is not well served. Sometimes saying, “no,” to an extra practice or game reaps long term physical and mental benefits.

Also protect your child emotionally. The goaltender too often is the hero or the goat. In the later instances, players and coaches struggle to say the right things. In this day and age hockey at all levels is treated as “serious business,” regardless of appropriateness of this attitude the stresses upon players and coaches too often is dropped on the goaltender. In supporting your child, a pep talk at the conclusion of a “bad” game may not be well received. This being said, simply listening to a child’s frustration and reminding that tomorrow is another opportunity may be enough. Allow your goalie to experience the emotion of sport good and bad – these feelings are what makes sport so special – but the day or two after a tough beat, encourage them to get back into the crease with enthusiasm. Disappointment comes with caring, renewed optimism each next time on the ice is the mark of a champion.

It is often heard and is fair to say, “That it is tougher to watch your child compete than to be the competitor yourself.” This thought could not ring more true for the parent of a goalie. Regardless of the opportunities and challenges presented enjoy the family journey, encouraging your child’s passion and supporting him or her emotionally throughout.

Dr. Adam Naylor directs the Boston University Athletic Enhancement Center (www.bu.edu/aec) and leads Telos Sport Psychology Coaching (www.telos-spc.com). He has served as a consultant to high school, major junior, NCAA, minor league, and NHL goaltenders during their careers. He blogs on sport psychology and player development at http://prosportpsychsym.wordpress.com a resource for athletes, coaches, and parents.

Roberto Luongo will be back in Canada’s goal against Russia on Wednesday.

Head coach Mike Babcock confirmed he was sticking with Luongo shortly after he stopped 21 of 23 shots in Tuesday’s 8-2 win over Germany, and took issue with a question about Luongo’s lack of big-game experience compared to Martin Brodeur.

“Didn’t he win a World Cup? Wasn’t he the one that got Canada to the final?” Babcock replied in reference to the 2006 World Cup, in which Luongo replaced an injured Brodeur in the semi-final before giving the net back up for the final victory.

“It’s very easy to always say he didn’t do this or he didn’t do that,” continued Babcock. “I think his bank account shows that he is a good goalie. I know every time we play him he puts up this wall and I’m excited he’s playing net for us tomorrow. We’ve got a great big man in net. We’re going to give up some opportunities, that is just the reality of (the Russians) are that good. But he’s a big man and doesn’t let it go under him or through him and if they put it around him, we’ll line up for a faceoff and get on with it.”

The “under” and “through” references were to Brodeur, who struggled in Sunday’s 5-3 loss to the United States. Babcock pointed out after making the switch to Luongo that some of the goals that found holes in Brodeur’s stand-up style would have simply hit a big butterfly goalie like Luongo. As for the possibility the swift, skilled Russians could exploit Luongo off the rush more than Brodeur, who remains one of the world’s top one-on-one, read-and-react goaltenders, Babcock seems willing to live with that, trusting that his improving defense will be able to limit Russia’s odd-man chances off the rush.

“We need him to be fabulous for us and he has every chance to do that,” Babcock said.

Loungo is relishing that opportunity – and trying to steer clear of controversy.

“Twenty years from now, if we win, nobody will remember who played goal but they will remember that we won,” Luongo insisted, while at the same time calling Tuesday’s game the biggest of his career. “But hopefully it’s not the biggest game this week.”

Luongo is visibly excited at what could be a career-defining moment, one he waited for behind miserable teams in New York and Florida, and has failed to grasp so far in second-round playoff losses behind a better – but not great – Canucks team. He does have a pair of gold medals at the World Championships, including one where he came off the bench to spell an injured Sean Burke and lead Canada to gold. He also has a good history against Alex Ovechkin, going 10-1-0 with a .933 save percentage against Washington since the Russian superstar joined the Capitals, stopping Ovechkin on three shootouts.

Luongo knows, however, that this is different. Not only is Ovechkin surrounded by an incredible cast of offensive stars – Evgeni Malkin, Pavel Datsyuk, Ilya Kovalchuk and Alexander Semin to name a few – but the pedigree of his own supporting cast, and the long history between the countries means anything less than a victory, no matter how things play out, will be a blight on his record that only a Stanley Cup will erase.

“You have to deal with the pressure and rise to the occasion,” Luongo said. “There’s a lot of history behind (the rivalry with Russia). It’s a big stage, the nerves are there, but it’s a good thing. It gets the adrenaline going it gets you a bit sharper, a bit more focused. I had a lot of fun out there (against Germany) and I’m sure I’ll have a lot more (on Wednesday). They have a lot of skill so we’ve got to play our game, be physical and not give those guys much room on the ice. And as far as I’m concerned just make sure that I play those guys aggressive. I know a lot of guys are shooters and I’ve got to be aware of that.”

Kevin Woodley is a rec-league target and former contributing editor of the Goalie News magazine. 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.

Kevin Woodley is a rec-league target and former contributing editor of the Goalie News magazine. 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.

By now the entire world knows Canada’s Olympic fate rests with Roberto Luongo.

The more interesting question for fellow goaltenders is why? After hearing coach Mike Babcock break it down Monday, the bigger questions may be why it took so long to go away from living legend Martin Brodeur, and does the move maybe come too late?

“We’re in the winning business and to win games at any level you need big saves. You need momentum-changing saves and we’re looking for Lou to do that for us,” Babcock explained of his goaltending switch “He’s a great big butterfly goaltender and if you look at the way the puck went in our nets last night, with traffic and people in front a lot, which is the way the game is now. Sometimes just being down in that big butterfly things hit you and bump into you. We believe Lou gives us a real good opportunity to win.”

In other words, Babcock appears to agree with the inGoal analysis detailed in this space after the Americans beat Canada 5-3 on Sunday, that three of the goals that beat Brodeur on Sunday would have been stopped by most butterfly goaltenders.

It’s true the first one was deflected off Sidney Crosby, a fact both Crosby and Brodeur quickly pointed out after the loss. But it still went in on the far side about eight inches off the ice as Brodeur went into his old school one-pad down technique, leaving no backside coverage along the ice. Deflection or not, that puck hits Luongo or Marc-Andre Fleury in the right pad.

Ditto the second goal, which Brodeur tried to stop with an awkward sliding two-pad stack as ex-Devils teammate Brian Rafalski shot the puck low through a screen. The fourth goal, on another low shot by Rafalski, deflected through his legs, a space most butterfly goalies fill.

Add in the fact Brodeur’s puckhandling, thought to be an advantage with the restrictive NHL trapezoid eliminated for the Olympics, was causing more problems than it solved because his defensemen didn’t know where to go – another detail outlined in this space before the loss – and led to the first two goals, and Babcock had to make the switch.

“I felt going into the tournament we set ourselves up for the possibility of making one change,” Babcock said, adding it was Luongo-or-bust from here “We played both guys the first two and felt if we needed a change we had one, and now we’re making it.”

Why they didn’t make it earlier is a question that may haunt Canadians for years.

If inGoal could successfully predict the problems Brodeur’s style might cause against an American team that pre-scouted him heavily and had three current and former Devils to help break those weaknesses down, why couldn’t the Canadian coaching staff, which is notably devoid of a goalie coach?

It’s hardly a secret Brodeur has bucked a butterfly trend that started because most goals were scored along the ice, and while NHL teams rarely adjust their shooting strategy for one game of 82 in the regular season, they have done so against him in the playoffs, with Carolina shooting pucks into his feet en route to two postseason series victories, and Tampa Bay coming close in another.

“You mentally prepare differently when he’s in net. He’s a great goalie, but a different goalie,” New Jersey teammate and U.S. forward Zach Parise said of Brodeur. “A lot of the butterfly goalies you know they are going to go down so sometimes the upstairs is going to be open, but with him we talked about throwing a lot pucks from everywhere in his feet. When he had the puck to not give him a lot of time to make that initial breakout pass he’s so good at making. We went right at him and caused a lot of turnovers, which is something we talked about before.”

When the Devils hired and fired Claude Julien in 2006-07, Brodeur called it his toughest season, telling the now-defunct Goalie News magazine that the shot-blocking style Julien implemented left him dealing with too many “grenades” as pucks changed direction and came through screens. Brodeur is probably the greatest goaltender in the history of hockey when it comes to reading and reacting to shots, but the Devils have always done a good job of making sure he can see them, clearing lanes and rebounds rather than trying to front screens or block shots. And that made him a poor fit in the Canada net, especially against a U.S. team loaded with players armed with that first-hand knowledge. Think Rafalski walks into the slot unchecked and shoots along the ice against anyone else?

“Playing with him he would always make sure he could see the puck, he didn’t want us standing in front of him, so our forwards got in front of him and we got shots low,” Rafalski said Tuesday.

The problem now is that loss leaves Canada needing to beat Germany and Russian on consecutive nights to even have a chance to medal – and win four games in six nights against the world’s best teams to make it gold. And the real irony may be that Brodeur gives them a better shot to beat Russia on Wednesday because of his ability to stare down shooters one-on-one, as he did on a pair of breakaways against the U.S., and because the Russians don’t appear willing to play the same throw-pucks-at-the-net style that the U.S. used so effectively, and don’t appear to have scouted opposition goaltending as well as the Americans.

Then again, based on results so far, neither did Canada.

Just after posting about Miller’s mask we have also learned that Jonathan Quick also has problems – this time with the “Support our Troops” on his backplate. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) has ruled that he cannot have this slogan on his mask – as ‘political propaganda and advertisements’ are not permitted by the IOC. A number of readers have also pointed out the USA Hockey logo may e a problem for Quick and Thomas – recall that Team Canada were not permitted to use the Hockey Canada Logo on their jerseys by the International Olympic Committee.

Thanks to Eric McErlain @emcerlain for the tip via Twitter

Thank you all for your patience. We seem to have ironed things out with our web hosts for the time being and things should be back up to speed – if not faster than before.

The two articles by AHL goalie Mike McKenna have been amongst our most popular – people love to hear it from an expert and to top it off Mike is a heckuva good writer. He has kindly offered to make his next article a response to reader questions.

So whether you want to follow up on the differences between the NHL and other pro leagues, or if you have a question about Mike’s gear, or if you have anything else related to goaltending fire the questions in an email, or add them to the comments below. We’ll get them to Mike right away and he’ll have another great piece for us before long.

We need to get these to Mike so he can get writing so send your questions today.

The last few days have been very eventful at inGoal Magazine. Yesterday at around 4PM PST the site first slowed to a crawl and then crashed. It took some 15 hours for our host to restore service. The good news is that we were brought to our knees by floods of traffic. It wasn’t long ago that we measured our traffic in the hundreds – but yesterday thousands and thousands of you overwhelmed our obviously underpowered server.

Right now things might be a bit slow. Our host has throttled our connection because they don’t want our popularity to wreak havoc on all the other sites they are hosting on the same server.

In response we have pared our theme well back, and changed how many of our images are hosted. Things are a bit bare boned right now and we ask for your patience. We’re working hard to bring things up to speed and back in order as quickly as possible.

Many thanks for your great support,

“Hutch”