Rest vs Rust

With both Colorado Avalanche goalies facing a lengthy break going into the Stanley Cup Final — eight days off since the Western Conference Final for Pavel Francouz and 14 between games for Darcy Kuemper because of an upper-body injury believed to be related to his vision — NHL dot com asked me to write a story on the challenge of a long gap between games for goalies.

While that story focused more on the history and specific difficulties of overcoming such breaks, the additional advice that came from the interviews with NHL goalies past and present, as well as Los Angeles Kings goalie coach Bill Ranford was worth sharing here, with valuable insights for goalies and coaches faced with similar breaks over the summer or in-season.