InGoal Radio Episode 262 with Alex Lyon

Intro

One of these days, we are just going to start recording when we all get together on the Zoom before we agree that we're gonna begin the episode because there's so much that happens. I've never been with a group of people that takes so long to go from getting on the zoom to actually start recording because we, we all love catching up and shooting the breeze and talking about goaltending. And right now we're talking about some of our activities during the holidays. But, this is this is fun stuff. But one of these days, we're just gonna roll it and and take it right on through.

No formal start to the episode. Daren Millard along with David Hutchison and Kevin Woodley. It's InGoal Radio Podcast brought to you by The Hockey Shop Source for Sports Langley, thehockeyshop.com. Woody is back from his surf vacation. How are the waves?

They were perfect as in not too big for my sorry ass to surf. So it was you know, everyone's like, hey. The surf is down. I'm like, this is perfect. Between the waist and the shoulder height is exactly where I live.

Thank you very much. There were a few overhead, but I just let them go by, Daren. It was it was an amazing trip. It was excellent. And we do have a lot to talk about beyond our vacations because man, has it been busy around the National Hockey League while I was gone.

NHL going through the draft process and, now free agency and there's, some movement that's happened in and around the hockey league. We'll get into that in just a little bit. We have the Stop It Goaltending U, the app parent segment. Hutch, you've got some plans about, just with your child dealing with teammates.

You know, this week we published a fantastic on ice session with LA Kings director of goaltending, Bill Ranford from TendyFest, where he walked everyone through their left shoulder dominant back of net play system. And afterwards, Bill was kind enough to do a nearly one hour Q and A session for everybody in attendance at TendyFest moderated by, by Woody. And in that session, lots of great parent content, but one of the questions came up from a young goaltender who said, what do I do when my teammates are scoring on me? Kind of a frustrating situation that we all face right up to beer league, you might as well get used to that, folks, because all roads lead to beer league as they say. And, anyway, just wanted to address that question this week in the parent segment.

We're gonna actually play the clip from Bill and his response to that and then expand on a little bit to different situations where you might be frustrated with teammates and and, how to give your goalie some advice on the best way to respond to that.

The on ice demo at TendyFest was brilliant. Congratulations, to Bill for that presentation and to you guys for just putting it together an incredible, audio presentation, but the video and the multiple cameras really dialed in, with, what Bill was doing with young Maddie on the ice.

Well, full full credit to Hutch for dialing in the audio to the point where you could actually hear it. It was a tough task because as you know, this is a bit of a challenge when you have people outside the rink that wanna listen to what's being said in the rink. We had them fully mic'd up, but all the speakers at most arenas are set up right above the ice so that, like, whatever, like, free skates and, you know, figure skating and so the people on the ice can hear it, not for the people in the stands. So in order for us to make sure that the crowd around the arena at TendyFest could hear what Bill was talking about, we had to crank it, which created a ton of audio coming over top of Bill and Maddie's live mic. So Hutch did a great job of cleaning that up.

And if you don't know what we're talking about, make sure you go over to ingoalmag.com. It is Bill Ranford, four time Stanley Cup winner, two as a goalie, two as a goaltending coach, now the director of goaltending with the Los Angeles Kings. He spent fifteen full minutes on the ice walking us through a if you catch with your left hand, left shoulder dominant net play system that the LA Kings have taught for years, and not only does it make it easier talking to goalies like, Phoenix Copley about it when he went in and learned it, Joonas Korpisalo, the short time he was there, he adopted it, Make it easier to track pucks behind the net, simplify the process for goalies, but it also takes a lot of burden off the hips. So, if you haven't seen it already, make sure you check it out at ingoalmag.com. Fifteen minute video with Bill on the ice explaining the LA Kings left shoulder dominant behind the net system.

And as Hutch said, there was a follow-up q and a that we went upstairs afterwards and had spent a good almost an hour with Bill. And, yeah, we'll have that coming up this week at ingoalmag.com as well. So make sure you don't subscribe already, as as good a week as any to hop on board.

That's available to you listen to this episode of InGoal Radio, the podcast brought to you by the Hockey Shop Source for Sports Langley, hockeyshop.com. You will get some, current NHL analysis and feedback from Alex Lyon in our feature interview brought to by NHL Sense Arena, Lyon from the Detroit Red Wings, which is great because he's he's bounced around a little bit. He you have different partners, and and you were able to sort of delve into some of those experiences, Woody.

Well, when when you move around like that, you learn a lot of different things from a lot of different goalies. And one of the guys that he talked a lot about in the in the interview coming up is Sergei Bobrovsky, who we can now officially congratulate. We did the double congratulations last week. We can officially congratulate on Stanley Cup championship. So, timely to have Alex on to talk about some of the lessons he learned from him, but that's not all.

Alex is this is a fantastic interview. I know I say that a lot about our interviews, but he's one of those guys that really just was an open book, and shared an absolute ton about his path. And more importantly, for young goalies who might be going through similar experiences at various levels and ages, all the lessons along the way. So it's a it's a great one. I can't wait to share it with our audience.

Hockey Shop Gear Segment will delve into the True Catalyst line of skates. Is everything back at the hockey shop? Just wondering what's happening over at Source for Sports Langley, The Hockey Shop at the hockeyshop.com after TendyFest.

Yes. See, so Cam I go away on vacation while Cam has to do all the hard work of putting everything back on the shelves that he took off for Tendy Fest. It is done. And in addition to getting everything back in order over at Goalie Utopia, there is a ton of new stuff that is now available, and we'll have it in upcoming gear segments. Like you said, we got the True Catalyst line of skates this week.

But coming up in the next couple of weeks, the CCM AXIS XF stick, which we've had a ton of pro validation like Thatcher Demko loves this stick, a lot of other guys that are using it really, really like this twig. It's now available at The Hockey Shop and the hockeyshop.com. As well, the new Bauer Konekt 2 skate, the new version of it, the all blacked out one that we saw in the National Hockey League this year on goalies like Andrei Vasilevskiy. That is also available along with a new fit system. So Cam's gonna walk us through that in the upcoming weeks.

There's in addition to everything we've covered, there's a ton of new gear coming. And as a matter of fact, it's there already. You can check it out at the hockeyshop.com or in person at the Hockey Shop Source for Sports in Langley, and get your hands on, like, we talk about the latest and the greatest. Cam's got it all on this on the shelves ready for you to check out and check out either in person or online.

There's no better resource for your gear and your gear questions than the Hockey Shop Source for Sports Langley, the Hockey Shop dot com cam and company. That should be on the side of the building. Cam and Company.

Oh, come on. We like, we're gonna that head's gonna get even bigger. Won't be any masks left that fit him.

I'm trying to give him more. I'm trying to to pump his tires a little bit to expand that corner.

Listen, the gear company is gonna have to expand the sizes of their mass if we pump that tire anymore.

Some news around the National Hockey League coming out of the National Hockey League draft, few swaps, trades. We touched on a couple of the, just shuffling that, that happened a week ago. And on top of that, let's start with the Edmonton Oilers putting Jack Campbell on waivers for, the purposes of a buyout just a couple of years after that, significant splash through free agency.

Line a contract as well. Recent InGoal Magazine or InGoal Radio Podcast guest, Calvin Pickard, signed to a two year extension with the Oilers. So, obviously, he earned that job as their backup moving forward and good for him. It's unfortunately for Jack Campbell, who's also been very kind to us over the years with his time, and and interviews, at his expense. So I think as much as it seems harsh to say this when you're talking about a buyout and a team basically paying you to go away, which I guess is what we're talking about here, this could be a really good opportunity for Jack Campbell because it didn't appear there was going to be one for him in Edmonton, short of injuries with Stuart Skinner establishing himself and Calvin locked in as the backup.

So Jack's gonna get a chance with this buyout to sign somewhere else, hopefully get another, you know, sort of fresh lease lease on goaltending life and maybe a little less pressure, less of a contract, but an opportunity to play again. And and for his sake, hopefully, at the at the NHL level, because he did a really good job once he went down and sort of settled down in the in the American Hockey League level. I think he finished the year with a save percentage around nine twenty. So it's not the end of the road. It's just the end of his time in Edmonton.

I have no doubt that somebody signs him to a contract. If it's a two way, if it's an American Hockey League contract, and and you can turn that into something, but he will play in North America.

I I believe that. 100. I I actually won't I won't name names, but I know at least one team kicked the tires on the idea of acquiring him with Edmonton retaining half. Now ultimately, Edmonton saves more money this way. Like, that's less of a cap hit spread over over a longer term by going the buyout route.

And then, again, for an acquiring team, now you're looking at being able to get him for for less than than half of that original $5,000,000 salary. And, you know, for all the talk about that contract and and and what it meant and and whether it was wise, I still believe Jack Campbell can play at this level. It's just asking him to be a $5,000,000 starter didn't work out in Edmonton.

A week ago, Jacob Markstrom was acquired by the New Jersey Devils and Darcy Kuemper was returned to the Los Angeles Kings for a second go around in Hollywood. This week, the Washington Capitals acquire Logan Thompson from the Vegas Golden Knights. And I pause there because I'm trying to absorb the idea of an all southpaw goaltending tandem.

I'm trying to remember who it was because somewhere along the way, this idea was raised as a problem in the eyes of a National Hockey League goaltending coach or at the very least a potential problem. And I'm I'm really struggling to remember exactly where it was.

I remember that too.

Was it was it did Jose Theodore and Thomas Vokoun play for the Florida Panthers at some point together or somebody with Vokoun in Nashville. And it might have even been Mitch Korn who's also back in Nashville coincidentally talking about the two lefties. And I'm trying to find a message that I got about this because we have a coach that we know sent me a note about his experiences with with having two lefties on a university team and the shooters not liking it one bit Because your habits in terms of where the glove is and shooting glove, your instincts can change if every time you do it at both ends of the ice in a practice, it's on the opposite hand compared to, what is it, 95% of the rest of the league. So, I'm really kinda curious to see how this goes, having two full rights on the same team, and whether this becomes a topic for discussion again amongst shooters in Washington.

The practice goalie is gonna get a lot of extra time called out there for the shooters. I wanna I wanna work on a on a left handed catching goalie in there a little bit.

Job opportunity.

Well, I'd say they actually they have in Washington, I I think it is it is it Matt Leanert? Yes. Or Brett. I'm brain cramping on the name. I've Write

that last name up.

Yeah. And he's a video coach, former NCAA goaltender who does a lot of practice stuff with and if I butchered the name, I apologize because I've only had about three hours sleep on a on a overnight flight home last night, so that's my excuse.

If we could all struggle with overnight flights from Hawaii, we'd all be better off. Wouldn't wouldn't we be in a great place, Hutch?

Oh, I'm I'm I can feel the tears coming now. I just feel so badly for Woody and Woody's been through the last week.

It's it's easy to make fun of him.

But I know I know he I know he can overcome it though.

I just can't get the names right. Nope. I mean, I need an excuse here. I may have screwed this up.

I'm telling you, there there's there's real impact of red ice. They're hard, and it takes you it does take you a couple of days to to get back on on the swing of things. It's just when you when you add in Just total sympathy. Hawaii. That's that's where we lose all sympathy.

And it's not right it's not right, Woody, but we're gonna do it anyway.

It's okay, guys. I'm just happy to be home because the airline that I was flying on has a wild cat strike going on with their mechanics and engineers. And I was the the last I was the last flight home.

Oh, again, can you imagine, Daren, if his flight was canceled and he had spent another week surfing in Hawaii? That would have just been terrible.

Well, I'll I'll pile on to that and tell you that the work stoppage has affected National Hockey League free agency and how teams are dealing with it. The draft was in Vegas. Teams going back to Canada for free agency had a couple of flights canceled and just decided, you know, we're not gonna take a chance that half our guys are in Canada and half our guys are in Vegas waiting to get a flight. We're just gonna set up shop in Vegas for the first day and a half of free agency. There you go.

Now imagine making that call saying, nope, we're we're stuck in Vegas. We can't come back because of the strike. And and that's what at least a couple of teams have done in the National Hockey League, instead of going back to Canada.

But most importantly, they may have screwed a bunch of NHL teams. They got Woody home in time to do this podcast, and that's what matters.

That would have been fun just to get the video at the airport of Woody being told he can't get back to do the podcast. Sorry. You you can't get back to do what? Just set up Wi Fi.

Pretty sure he could have handled the podcast from the Lanai in Hawaii.

There there may have been one, you know, all radio now is simulcast on, you know, streamed, live streamed. There may have been one of my weekly radio appearances with, I believe, the guys from Edmonton ahead of game seven. I do a Monday show there, and that just happened to be game seven, and so I wasn't skipping that one. And it may have been in their words the greatest background backdrop for an interview they've ever had.

We should touch on game seven. But before we do that, Logan Thompson goes to Washington and LT partners with Charlie Lindgren. And that's that's a new look of a tandem. Neither guy was thought of as a number one at the start of last year. And now they're one a, one b, or is it Lindgren the starter and Logan who asked for a trade out of Vegas to get more playing time?

Is he the backup, or is is he a guy that could push?

I would say that Charlie earned the starting job based on his performance last year and the fact he took that starting job away from Darcy Kuemper. But I think in today's National Hockey League, there's no like, there's no such thing as a workhorse. Like, you're playing 30 regardless. Like, even the elite guys are being penciled in for 55 tops, which leaves, what, 27 games. So even if you're around 52, 30 split, like, you're gonna get an opportunity to play.

And I think there were times, like, Charlie really dug in there admirably for Washington down the stretch, but I think you could argue, and we saw it with some of the other teams that, you know, had a guy come in and do the job for the first time at that level and earn the job for the first time at that level. But as they were asked to play more and more and more down the stretch, there were some speed wobbles there. So, you know, having somebody there that they trust in Thompson as and let's not forget Logan Thompson, first team he signed with out of Brock University was in the Washington Capital's organization. So there's some familiarity there. And so, you know, I think he's gonna get an opportunity to play.

I will say the one guy and we'll see what happens in free agency, which starts the day after we record this. But one guy I feel a little bit bad for that I thought might get that opportunity. I thought it earned it. Back to back Call of the Cup championships. Goalie of the year in the American Hockey League was Hunter Shepard, who we've had on the podcast before.

And, you know, he just does nothing but win at the American Hockey League level. I thought he had some good games when he was up in the NHL last year and a little bit this year, and I thought it might be his chance to get that opportunity alongside Charlie. But, evidently, they've they felt they needed to go in a different direction and it is a double left handed direction.

The frustration level's there for the athlete knocking on the door. Why be extra patient? Why? Because you can't do it really anymore from a winning perspective. And then we see this idea of of doubling down on time in the in the American Hockey League.

Well, I think he's a UFA. So, like, this was a choice that they went in different direction. So I

I I didn't realize that.

I yeah. I believe Hunter's a UFA, and I hope he gets an opportunity, you know, with some NHL component to it because he's you know, I think this might be a size thing. Right? Like, we it always seems to come back to that so often, and yet, all the guy does all the guy does. And not just win, because the Hershey's a good team.

Like, is because there are guys that win because they're on good teams. But, like, this guy is the goalie of the year down there. He's dominated for years. He's had a great performances. And like I said, let's hope he gets more more looks in the National Hockey League level wherever he ends up next.

Whole idea of draft or acquire and develop, but that development aspect of building up skills within your organization and then teams, bypass it or take extra time with with that player. Let's get into, some communication and, we had a great email regarding the topic of the parent segment last week. And we love this because we just threw it out there. We didn't know the answer to this question. So Hutch, can you walk us through what we asked the universe for answers to?

We did. We had a conversation last week about why I thought it was a good idea for young goaltenders to get experiences on ice officials as referees and lines people. And, in that, just happened to mention that, referees are required to be in player skates. You can't at least where we are around here, you can't wear goalie skates as an on ice official. And I did mention that that could be a little bit tough because already as goaltenders, we're we're in it for a a slightly more expensive ride for gear.

And so adding that onto the burden is is a little bit tough. And, one of our readers sent in a note, Stefan Sanders, thank you very much all the way from Alaska, goaltender and a goalie coach, Reminded us, makes all the sense in the world, doesn't it? That, only player skates have that Achilles protector that goes up the back and covers the Achilles tendon. If that does get, cut because somebody steps on you, nasty, nasty injury that takes a good year to recover from. And so, Stefan, thanks for sharing that with us.

I'm sure you're absolutely right. Personally, I kinda like to see the young kids still get a bit of a waiver. I don't think a six year old's gonna cut your Achilles if they step on you. But, but regardless, it it does make sense and we gotta look after the the young kids out there. So that's, the point of the rule.

Thank you, Stefan. Anybody else wants to talk about the parent segment? Parents at InGoalmag.com or anything at all in relation to InGoal and their and the show, info at ingoalmag.com.

I made a boo boo. Someone told me Hunter Shepard was a UFA. He's not. He's got he's got one year left in Washington, so he could still be in the mix there.

Well, as you've said so many times, right, it takes three or four even goaltenders at the NHL level, so he's gonna get his shot.

And you know what? And There's a lesson there because I could have easily said, and I'm not too big of a person to admit that I haven't done this in the past. But when you said he's a UFA, I could have said, oh yeah, that's right. I didn't realize that. I admitted I didn't realize that.

And now I feel a little bit vindicated with that. Not not that I was following Hunter Shepard's contract at all, but, you don't automatically have to go, oh, I knew that. I I was fully aware of that. And then because if it if it's not right, then you're really exposed.

I'm just glad I looked it up because someone told me that, and I I'm like, what's stuff? Yeah. Your hesitation because you're normally you're you're on top of these things. And the fact that you didn't know, was like, oh, and especially because it's a guy from Vegas going to Washington, I'm like, okay. Maybe maybe I I should double check this because and because I typically look for myself.

Like, I normally check these things, but I just took somebody's word for it and, you know, I'm waiting for the tears to flow for Hutch here, but I I've been busy for the last week. Wasn't paying I knew I wasn't looking stuff up while I was away. I wasn't pulling up the To be fair. I wasn't pulling up Cap Friendly while I was away.

To be fair, Woody sent me a whole lot more content to deal with than I expected to see while he was out there surfing. So thanks for hanging in there at night, Woody.

Cap friendly is going away. Puckpedia, if anybody wants to follow that, that's the best site that I found in the interim. I don't know whether somebody's going to start a a new, Cap friendly, but Puckpedia has really done a good job of, elevating their presence when it comes to salary cap information and player salary information. So follow that, right now. It's fun it's funny.

Cap Friendly was acquired by the Washington Capitals, the the people around that. So they've they've been really busy, on the off season front.

Yes. And listen. As Hutch said, like, you're gonna need three. So Hunter's gonna continue to get opportunities with the Washington Capitals this year just like he did last year. And all he did like I said, all this guy does is win.

So, let's see where it goes beyond that. Right? Because this is Charlie Lindgren was on a three year deal. This is the final year coming up. LTE, Logan Thompson, I believe is on the last year of

deal. So

was Hunter Shepard. So maybe there's extensions coming. Maybe they look to re up Charlie early. Maybe the same with Logan Thompson. We don't know.

At the end of the day, they have three guys that I believe are capable of doing the job at the National Hockey League level, and that is a good problem to have if you're the Washington Capitals. Even if back to my original premise, I would have loved to have seen Hunter get that shot.

But they don't put all their pucks in the Hunter Shepard hockey bag and hope that he makes that step and is lights out. There's some insurance there.

Weren't we just talking about an extension for Calvin Pickard?

Yes.

You know, started in the American Hockey League and now he's fresh off an extension in the NHL. So anything can happen. You just need an opportunity.

Amazing. You look at that those two teams at the start of last year to where they are going into next year, a lot of things have transpired with with goaltenders leaving, goaltenders coming up, goaltenders establishing themselves. A lot can happen. I know players get frustrated going, when's my opportunity? It can happen really in the snap of the fingers.

Well, there's never been more volatility in the position, which makes some of the moves we've seen interesting. We haven't gotten to Linus Ullmark going to Ottawa, but he's only got a year left on the deal. We've got free agency coming up. Like, I hate to say this because every time I do, I'm waiting for the knock on the door to come take away my goalie Union card. Well, with all this volatility, the one thing I'm avoiding if I'm a general manager, unless I've got a lock fire, I know this guy is one of the few that we would truly call elite goaltenders, I'm probably avoiding term.

But what do you do with Shesterkin then?

Yes. He's gonna reset the market probably, and I would be nervous about it. I mean, the guy who sorta I thought reset the market last summer was Ilya Sorokin because he got eight and a half. Because for the longest time, we saw guys like Demko sort of coming up to that stage and taking five. Like, guys were up five, five point six.

Even Jacob Markstrom is the premier unrestricted free agent a couple years ago got six. I think Sorokin reset the bar at eight and a half, but then he wasn't their starter when game one of the playoffs came. Like, that's the volatility I'm talking about. Do you look at that and go, okay. Well, the market's 8 and a half and is gonna get more.

Do you look at it and go, can we really be spending that on goaltending if if it there's this much swing in it from year to year?

Gear

Let's talk about spending some money on skates on your wheels with the Hockey Shop Gear Segment, the hockeyshop.com, and Source for Sports Langley with the True catalyst line. And there's there's a lot of numbers in play here, and but this is, this is the line that that players and goaltenders can really dive into.

It's the stock version for True. So you can walk into the store and get it off the rack. Catalyst line, 9X4 is the high end. It goes down, I believe, 7X4 and 5X4 We talk quickly about all of them with Cam.

You know, rather than me explain it because we don't do a lot of stuff with true. So what we don't get product to test ourselves where I can get out on the ice and validate it and tell you whether it's yay or nay for me. Let's just let Cam fill you in on all the details in our weekly gear segment.

Welcome back to The Hockey Shop Source for Sports. I'm over in Goal Utopia with Cam Matwiv and the new True skates, Catalyst skates. I'm always having a little trouble with

There you go.

The nomenclature changes a fair bit. This is the 9X4 Catalyst Skate all new Correct. From True. Correct. Cam, walk me through.

That was good. I could, like, I could, like, have a rap album. All new, True, walk me through. I rhyme.

Wow. Welcome back to the Hockey Shop Source for Sports. I'm Cam. He's Kevin. And today, we're talking about the Catalyst True Skate.

Look at that double intro. So brand new, continuing off of the success of the, TF series of skates. We have some major differences between the TF seven, TF nine. There's now three price points, which is definitely worth talking about. New technical price point with the 9X skate.

So let's dive into that one first.

So that's the top end?

This is now the new top end.

9x four. That's the new True top end skate. Correct.

So, again, they wanna take a lot of their thermal moldability and overall customizable fit to a bit of a degree from their custom skates and brought that down into what would be their stock line of skates that we're seeing

here. Hold on. This is the top stock off the wall option

from True. Wanna make sure we still clarify.

You can still order the full custom, the one piece. Two piece. There you go. Yes. This this is sort of at the store, walk in

This is giving me the ability to get that custom fit. Details. Yes. We go. Correct.

So, again, that super thermomoldable composite that they have been using still makes its return back in. Some added durability features right off the bat because they definitely are a 100% worth touching on. Let's look at the back of the Escape first right off the bat. So before, we had exposed carbon all the way through the back. You may be seen some heel cracking issues with the older TF series, especially in the TF nine.

A lot of that happened was as you're swinging and contacting the post or even your skate leg contacting the back of that skate as well, was starting to weaken that carbon, punch holes through it, created some cracking issues.

How is my skate blade touching the back of the skate blade?

If you Oh, you have their skate? Correct.

Oh. Yes. Some of us don't ever do that Cameron.

You'd be surprised at the amount of people that do.

Okay.

Even that leather strip along the back with some extra padding as well can make all of that difference. It's now creating a new contact surface, a new impact surface to helping reduce some of those cracking issues that we did see. So, again, True listen, saw it right off the bat.

Crack the code.

They crack the code as it is. The cracks. Of getting got them. So side of the skate as well, we do see less of that exposed carbon, more of that full wrap, actually a feature they didn't find in their, custom skates on the upper, upper price point as well. Again, creating some protection for the outer side of the skate where we did see some wear issues before on the previous models.

So let's talk about the fit of the skate and also a cool new feature. So NanoFit is again that talking about that thermal multiple technology. NanoFit. NanoFit. Okay.

So that's in you got the high end. Is it I'm holding

the second price point. Does it exist there? It exists in the second price point as well. Yes. So the cool factor of this skate is their new hinge.

So their motion cuff is what they are calling it. So it's actually an insert that goes along the first two eyelets of the skate itself allowing forward flexion when that goalie is now flexing and putting pressure forward.

Hold on. So there's an insert. I'm

just talking about actual cuff of the skate itself. So plastic piece now comes through. First two eyelets, that's where its connection is. Now it's creating that forward flex when you do create that pressure on.

So The the back this isn't flexing. Like, this is not all that's flexing, it's giving you the ability to

flex forward in the tongue. On the inside, not on the tongue. It's actually inside the skate itself. So you will feel that overall There's a moving piece

in there.

There's a moving piece in there.

Okay. Good to know.

So you will find that on the 9X, 7X, not the 5X because again, we gotta take something out as we're going to tier the price point.

That's the third price point down the 5X there. So it doesn't exist. It exists in the top two. So, I mean, this solves for I mean, we see it right up in the NHL. Most of the goal is wearing True.

Don't do up top laces on their skates to try and establish a little forward flex and get a little mobility rather than being so locked in that that you worry about injuries. They they a lot of guys just don't do up the top too. This gives you the ability to sort of maintain a little more connection and a

bit of forward flex. It's a great great I mean, I wouldn't be ripping still all the way up to the top eyelet super super tight by any means, but it still might potentially allow that ability to that top eyelet, but still back it off a little bit with some with some extra slack.

Okay. I like it.

Overall, one other good call out. This is something that changed a lot on on their custom skates. Now it's been brought into their stock lineup. So we see that little indent that's actually at the toe of the skate. So what that will fit perfectly is actually the post. So as they're going to go now push off, you can hinge yourself into that post and push off with your

Basically, that makes it a little gap for the fur to be on the post.

That's correct.

So in theory, your toe box, pad up, ceiling. Like it. I like that. That's that's cool. That's innovative.

So as we're starting to tier down through the lineup, we see you see their DLC. So that's our carbon coated steel on the 9x.

So the top end nine x four, better steel. This is Just a regular stock

stainless steel on the seven x four.

And then we get into the five x four, the low the lowest price point.

And then we start to see more differences in terms of the overall liner of the skate itself. And, we don't have that same hinge flex, on the five. But the seven x has have that.

Nice.

So great options from True. If wanna give us a call, talk about it a little bit more. (604) 589-8299 or 1-800-567-7790. Once again, custom is still available. Nothing has changed there.

So if say, these stock fits don't work for you, you know, obviously, there's that ability to go custom.

But within the stock fit, there still is a fair amount of, because of the thermal molding, custom fit in terms of shaping it around your foot. That's correct. In store once you buy. That's correct. Nice.

That's correct. In store once you buy. That's correct. Nice.

True. Catalyst 9x4, 7x4, 5x4. Their new lineup, some new innovative features. If you got any questions, make sure you give Cam a call or check them

out at thehockeyshop.com.

Boots, personal preference, Catalyst has got plenty of options for you in that True line of skate and there's also options with the different manufacturers. The tuck is something that I always look at the holder. You guys call it the holder, I call it the tuck. And I always think, am I being too much of a nerd when I consider how I'm going to put my toe ties through the tuck and not just whether or not it's a good comfortable boot?

Actually, I've never heard that question raised, Daren, but I think it's a really important one.

I Are you just think saying that because I'm here?

No. No. Let me finish. I'm actually thinking about young goaltenders especially because, you know, we get the elastic ones because they want to make it easier to tie up. If you're a parent down there and you know, you don't wind it around just so it ends up under the blade and causes problems in games.

And and so I actually think having the right holder, especially at a younger age, is is a bigger deal than maybe we think. We'll have to do some tests.

I'd say, like this. I like this conversation. I do remember, and this is one of the things that since going back to skate lace as my toe tie and just sticking with skate lace, but I remember when we were and as we test various gear companies using the Velcro attachment, so it sorta tie the top of the skate laces above above your actual skate laces. Some of the the holders, the gap for you to stick those big Velcro tabs through Mhmm. Was a little it was tight.

It was small.

The True one piece through. You had trouble getting those things through. Those the the little circles.

Yeah. So there I mean, there you go. That's that's something that I remember sort of thinking about at the time and haven't thought about since because I've gone back to skate lace, but it's, you know, it's certainly something that we we need to we need to maybe revisit and have a look at.

Nothing like, the layman over here bringing things back to to reality.

The layman, the only guy who faces NHL shooters in the group here. Come on now.

And we could we could get the we could get the layman we could get the layman back to using skate lace like the rest of us, and we'd be no problems.

As I tell Kelly McCrimin all the time, he's like, are you crazy doing that? And I say, I'm in the safest spot in the rink right in the middle of the net. Nothing touches If I if I moved over to a post where the where the pucks are going off and in, I'd be in danger of of actually being hit by one of those rockets. So I'm I'm all good. The parent segment brought to by Stop It Goaltending U, the app.

Just diving into a a really delicate situation that you're going to have to encounter if you play any length of time of any sport and you're a goaltender is dealing with teammates who make a mistake or craziness, put the put the puck in the net behind you by accident. How do you how do you navigate that? And, before we get to it, the Stop It Goaltending U, the app continues to make a great, impact on the goaltending world.

Well, that's because it's the world's most comprehensive app for goalies, goalie parents, and goalie coaches. Stop It Goaltending U, the app, is, of course, available at stopitgoaltending.com, at the App Store for all you Apple users, and at the Google Play Store for the Android users. This app has everything from quick daily primers to extensive deep dive videos. I was taking a look in the past week. The quick primers were the five steps of a training cycle.

So helping goalies understand the different steps of, of going through a training cycle as opposed to just doing it, like understanding how it works and what how you benefit the most from it. What I love about the app is well, there's two things I love. The first thing is that you can just go through and do the daily primers, quick hits here and there. You can dive deep into the longer segments in the longer videos. And, of course, what I love the most about the app is that it comes with a free subscription to InGoal Magazine.

Now anytime you download and purchase the Stop It Goaltending U, the app from, like I said, Google Play, Apple Store, or at stopitgoaltending.com. You get a free subscription to InGoal Magazine. Best of both worlds. Best way to become a better goaltender is to make sure you're reading both.

I love the daily primers. I do. But this idea of giving me some structure on a training cycle and a roadmap is outstanding.

We agree.

Would you use it?

There's a lot of things in my life that I should use and don't use, Daren, including a dangler. But, you know, yes. But I watched it, so I guess I will be using it. That's the beauty. If you just take these little snippets and you just sort of absorb it, you can you know, you're going through it later on.

You're like, oh, yeah. I remember why this is important. I need to make sure I focus on this as opposed to making it a daily part of my checklist. I just absorb it and make it a part of my life.

We should put up our training plans.

I plan to train someday.

Parent Playbook

Plan to train. It can be nasty situations that happen on the ice that aren't planned out and just go awry and you don't have to be a goaltender necessarily to handle this, but you are the person that's dealing with the end result of the different decisions or actions in front of you. So how do you handle it, Hutch?

Well, yeah, teammates. And, one nice thing about the great teammates that InGoal and Stop It Are is that I'm pretty sure that Brian Daccord is never gonna tuck a puck in behind me in a game. They're always there supporting us as our regular teammates are. Sometimes things happen out on the ice, as you say, Daren. And as parents, we have to be there to support our kids.

We're, in many senses, their most important coach, especially on the mindset side, I really believe. And we have to help guide them through some of these situations, especially the youngest goaltenders. And, as I mentioned before, at the, the TendyFest, q and a with Bill Ranford, he had a great response to a question along these lines, and and I'll get to that in a second. In fact, we'll even listen to Bill share that idea with us. But, yeah, it's it's pretty common to see young goaltenders being frustrated with their teammates.

And, you know, maybe maybe it's something as simple as they've given up a few too many goals in the game and they're upset at the defense for maybe not having a great game. They're upset at some teammates who are more interested in offense than in back checking. Get used to it, kids. All roads lead to beer league, and one day you're gonna have beer league teammates that never back check. But look, the general advice that we're all given as goaltenders that we wanna share with our kids is don't show that frustration.

Don't lift your head up and throw your arms up in the air as if you wanna tell the whole world what did you want me to do there. Don't yell at your teammates. Don't give them the stare down. Worse still, don't start arguing with them on the ice. I did once see in beer league a goaltender get in a fight with his own defenseman.

That is not where we

want to the fight we just disagreed for a second.

A legit throwdown. So so, yeah, we know we don't want them doing all that. What do you want them to do when they you know, when there's a mistake out there? Look, the fact is it's our job to be there when our team makes mistakes. And yes, some teams and some players make more mistakes than others, but it's the job we signed up for.

So we need to accept that and, play with the hand that we've been dealt. As we've just come off the NHL draft, I think it is worth pointing out that we've all spoken to lots of scouts and general managers who absolutely care about your demeanor on the ice. They've told us many times that they want unflappable goaltenders who don't show emotion. They wanna see goalies battle, but they want them battling to stop the puck, with their teammates or or anybody else on the ice, frankly. So as I've said, as parents, think it's important for us to make our kids aware of this.

But more importantly, as I often say, we wanna catch them being good and reinforce that best behavior that they have. So praise your kids, when they don't overreact to a goal, when they don't react at all to a goal, for example, when they don't outwardly get angry, when they have a tough game or when a teammate, has a tough game in front of them. Because not only, is it gonna upset you, it's not only is it gonna upset your team, but but frankly, it's gonna distract from your focus and having the right mindset to play your best. And I'm sure our good friend Pete Fry would back that up as well. But rather than just tell you my thoughts, wanted to share this clip we were talking about with you.

When at the TendyFest q and a, Bill was asked a question by a young goaltender who said, what do I do when my teammate scores on me? And I think he was probably implying that it happens a fair bit. And it does happen more and more in the game today, guys, doesn't it? Defenses are collapsing around the net. The higher up in the game you get as you start working towards, you know, u 18 and junior and obviously in the National Hockey League, defensively teams collapse around the net and more and more pucks are getting knocked in off of their own teammates.

Bums, shin pads, skates, sticks, especially when they try and get that stick in a lane and and stop a shot from coming towards the net or or a pass across the net front and and things end up going behind you that you don't want. It's gonna keep happening as you go up in the game, guys. So what do you do? Kind of it's rubbing salt in the wound and, and how are gonna handle it? So I would just first like to let everybody listen to Bill's response because I think it was perfect.

Really good question. How do I deal with teammates that put the puck into mine? You know what? Everybody makes mistakes. So the one thing I know I don't do is I don't stare at them or make everybody in the building know that they've put the puck in the net.

What I might do is when you get a chance, either between periods or if you get a chance, go to the bench and just give them knuckles. Feel you, man. Tough break. But don't give the hands up in the air and stare at the guy like, I can't believe you. Put in the that's everybody make make mistakes and then maybe the next time when you make a mistake, he's gonna come and give you a pat on the back and like, you got the next one.

That's how I approach it.

So Bill's response there, guys, wasn't it really just the golden rule? He wants everybody just to, give their defenseman if he knocks the puck in behind you a pat on the back and say, yep, sometimes it happens. What I really liked though about what Bill said is it wasn't just going over and pat them on the back where the whole world can see you in the middle of a game. It was wait until you're over on the bench, wait until it's just a quiet moment, it's just the two of you and just say, hey, don't worry about it. Things happen and and they happen to me too.

I I got your back. I'll get the next one. So I I think that's fabulous advice whether you're upset that your team has had a tough game, whether you're upset a specific play where one of your teammates has put the puck in behind you. Encourage your goaltender to accept responsibility, to do everything they can to stop every puck, to remain cool and calm when adversity strikes. And when a teammate makes that mistake that costs you, be understanding because that's what you want them to be with you.

The last thing I was just going to tell everybody guys is just if your kids aren't listening to you to the podcast in the car with you right now as so many do, play this clip from Bill because I think it's a fantastic thing for young goaltenders to listen to. Or next week when it comes out, listen to the whole q and a because they're probably gonna listen to a four time Stanley Cup more winner far more than they will to the three of us.

I usually just tell my teammates, you finally got one.

I go with, what would Woody do? And then I

Oh, no.

Then I chirp my teammates too. So I

I gotta I've gotta adopt some of what Hutch is saying.

I don't think I've seen Woody chirp his own teammates, but I've seen him go after referees and opposing players.

Listen. I'm too busy fighting the puck to fight anyone else. That's that's the reality these days.

I kinda like it if if there's a screw up goal. Then I'm like, that wasn't my fault. That's good. And every and nobody's even gonna think that on the bench. I I just got a free one.

You know, you're kinda right, but but when games get tough and now you're you're already behind and you've already Yeah. Feel like maybe you're not having your best game and then you get that tough break.

Easy to go. Come on, guys.

You know, jeez, it's bad enough without this happening. So but as we say, we we we just have to let the bounces happen and stay calm because that's what everybody wants to see and that's what helps you become a better goaltender too.

My favorite line to my teammates in in mens league because we all end up But the odd time when it isn't my fault, my defense member forward will stand beside me out getting the puck out of the net and they'll go, that's my bad. And I'll just look at them and go, well, it wasn't my fault. And then there's then there's laughter and joking and and we get to get back into it. But the the new guys, every every time we'll get a new person out and they're looking at me going, what's this guy talking about? It's not my fault.

My favorite one's when I leave a puck for a defenseman and then he makes a terrible pass and it's a turnover. And mid game, I just look at him and say, I could have made that pass. Yeah.

Yeah. Just deal I'm stealing that. Could have shortcut

could've shortcut the turnover and just done it myself.

I'm I'm stealing that from you. So, Woody, we we've got something that we can digest here from Hutch.

Valuable life lessons as goaltenders and and all joking aside, important ones, and it was nice to hear Bill's reaction and his words as I love that Hutch used that as part of the the parent segment because you could see the impact that his response and the way he engaged with the kids. You could see that impact directly at TendyFest. Just how, you know, jokes aside, Hutch talked about listening to the him more than the three of us, but you really could see how intently these kids were listening to his advice.

It wasn't the only good bit of parental advice in there either. There were three or four really good sound bites for for parents to listen to.

Incredible amount of resources in the history of InGoal Radio, the podcast, but the on ice presentation by Bill and then the off ice q and a is fabulous. It's it's right up there with the best, available interaction that anybody can have with with goaltending, whether it's parent or whether it's the goaltender itself. So well done, you guys. Awesome job. Thanks to Bill for that as well.

Let's get into some current National Hockey League experiences with our feature interview brought to you by NHL Sense Arena. Alex Lyon standing by making his way into, our studio, with NHL Sense Arena and the progress of, the metaverse and, what we're doing there. The ability to train is extravagant.

I don't know if you noticed it, while you were watching the draft. Guess it depends whose feed you're watching. And, unfortunately, I can't remember the goaltender who had just been selected, but, the announcers here on the Sports Net feed in Canada mentioned how much they loved this young man because he does everything he can to be a better goalie, not just the things everybody else is doing, like hitting the weight room and juggling balls. But they mentioned that he uses virtual reality tools to help him learn to make more saves and even said he was having a tough year half halfway through the year, got into the VR, and turned the season around and had a great year, now he's an NHL drafted goaltender. I wish could I remember who it was, but congratulations to that young man and and all of the goaltenders who were drafted, yesterday.

Of course, the TV folks are a little bit behind the rest of us here at InGoal and in the goalie world because they acted like this is very uncommon and not taking away anything from that goaltender because he is one of the many goalies staying on top of using the best tools. But in fact, there's a decent chance he might have even learned about it from listening to this podcast. But we know that there's a lot of goaltenders doing that now. Goldies like Joey Daccord in the National Hockey League using NHL Sense Arena, and his game day warm up is actually one of the many training plans that all of us can use on Sense Arena, the very same training plan that he uses. As we learn in the draft, we know that all the best young goaltenders that are coming up through the system are now trying things like NHL Sense Arena to make themselves the best goaltenders that they can.

And just as the announcer was so impressed at the mind mindset of this young goaltender to do all this, I think you should pick up on something there and realize that you shouldn't be shy and hide the fact that you use tools like NHL Sense Arena because the top people in the game now are noticing people who do that. And they'll know that you're one of the ones that's doing everything they can to be their best. So give Sense Arena a try, head over to sensearena.com and you'll learn everything you need to about this great tool and head over to the Meta Quest store in your headset and give it a go.

To Alex Lyon. Woody.

I just think we gotta roll this and tell you how good this interview was and let you listen for yourself and and feel free to hit us up and tell us that we were right. Alex goes everywhere at this one. An interesting background gets into his roots in minor hockey in Minnesota, his inspirations, the guys he's played with and what he's taken from them. He gets into his equipment and how the way he does up his toe ties. Speaking of, you know, using skate laces and gaps actually helps him achieve a wider butterfly, a more five hole coverage.

That was fascinating. And and that's probably enough. Let's just leave that tease right there. Everybody's gonna wanna listen for that alone, but I think you're gonna I can guess it's one of those ones where our listeners are gonna come out of this with, like, six or seven really solid takeaways that they either implement in their game or take with them to the rink from a mindset standpoint. Alex was fantastic, a great guest, and I really enjoyed having him on.

And make sure you check out his ProReads at ingoalmag.com as well.

See, NHL Sense Arena feature interview on InGoal Radio Podcast, Kevin Woodley with Alex Lyon.

Feature Interview - Alex Lyon

Really excited to welcome to the InGoal Radio Podcast. First time guest, long overdue Alex Lyon. I had a chance to catch up with you a little bit in the locker room when the Red Wings came through town, here in Vancouver this season, but and so I've been kind of excited and looking forward to this because I know you are a student of the position, a student of the game. I guess, first off, just catch us up. I was sorry to see you leave the world championships because of injury and and rolling when you did.

How was that experience other than the the way it ended, and how are things going for you in terms of the way the summer looks?

It was good. It was good. I, just had a cut on the hand and no splints, splints off. So feels pretty good. It's on a good track and life is good.

I was disappointed to leave. You know, I think obviously I went, not obviously, but I I went ten years ago, actually, when I was in Prague, in Ostrava then. That was when I was a sophomore in college. And it was kind of a cool, full circle experience for me because at that point, I didn't know up from down, didn't know anything about I mean, I looked back and I thought I knew everything, you know, one of those types of things. And then this time, just the comfortability, obviously, you play in a long time, and just the ability to kind of have a control of the destiny and a control of the outcome of a team gives you a lot more confidence than if you're just kinda sitting around.

So it was it was a cool experience in that way. I really got to, like, judge it one year and then ten years later, got to do it again.

I feel like this a lot of this conversation is gonna be how Alex Lyon has evolved and changed between the pipes, between the ears mentality, you know, mindset in those ten years. But just that experience this time, did you have to I'm sorry for not knowing this, but did you have to come back after the injury right away, or did you have a chance to be to stick around? And, you know, I think of a young guy like Trey Augustine who's who's in the same organization as you. Like, are you passing on life lessons? Because having had that ten year period, or are you letting him figure it out on his own?

Yeah. No. I came back right away. It's just tipped out my eyes and crossed my t's with the hand and get, you know, the top medical attention I could find and get Detroit's opinion, stuff like that. That was kind of a necessity.

But if you wanna jump into the Trey Augustine conversation, I could really talk about him for a while. Okay. He's he's he's actually you know, and and every young goalie is inexperienced and they can't gain experience. It's not of to no fault of their own. But he is about as spot on as, I I think, a 21, or I don't even know.

Was he 19? Like, he's he's got it going on. And I'm sure that you know better than me. You probably have watched him. That was my first experience with him.

I'd never even seen him play, but he knows, what's going on between the ears and physically. So I could just couldn't have been more impressed by the guy.

It's it's funny. We did actually we had him on the podcast last year, I think, around after the draft and just the way he thinks the position seems to be really mature for the age.

Yeah. And you can tell it's like it's almost like because I'm sure you get a feel for this talking about different guys of different ages, but everybody's arc is similar. It just depends on when it starts and then how it goes. But like, so I look at him and I look at my 25, 26 year old self where it's like the things that he's understanding and figuring out now and unlocking those keys are things that I didn't see for a long time, five, six, seven years after he did. And I think that's where I was most impressed.

It was like, this is a mature individual with a good temperament who is on the right path. And if he just you know, it's like anything. If you get injured or life or whatever, there's a lot of things that can derail it. But, he he's on the right right path, and that's that's as good as you can do.

Okay. So you talked about your age 25, 26. Let's go into, you know, how you got involved in the game and in the position. And, you know, obviously, there's stories about growing up on an island, and let's make sure we get those right. But, like, how much of that is just you grew up sort of not in a place where a lot of those things would be on hand for you to access coaching and and sort of where you are now from where you are there and and sort of maybe I don't say lack of preparation, Alex.

I don't think that's that's the right term, but maybe sometimes a lack of those same resources that Trey has sort of been, like, streamlined into this from a very young age.

I look at it, and I've thought about it a lot. I think it's really interesting for me because, a, I look at myself and say I'm six feet tall, not a really gifted physically physical human being, not a good jumper, not a really, like, naturally thick lower half, never been a good runner. You know, I I've always been very athletic, good feel, good hands, but never, like, I walk into the gym and it's like this guy's exploding out of the gym type of guy.

K.

And so I think, like you said, I grew up in Baddett, Minnesota. Never thought I would play professional or anything like that, but I was always really good. Obviously, you know, like, one of probably the best player on our team. And then in high school, I was really good. But I think one thing that was probably really, really good for me is that I learned how to stop the puck and win games and play with the team.

And I don't honestly know if I would be where I'm at now if I didn't have eighteen years of that. I think that it would have put guardrails on my game that I couldn't have discovered those intricacies of being an elite competitor and just letting my game speak for itself. And I and I tell this to everybody, but I'm I'm a puck stopper first, and I'm a goalie second. I'm out there to stop the puck. And this was always a great quote from Rob Talis who's been in Florida forever, but he always just said, you have one job, and it's to keep the puck out of the net.

Everything else comes after that, but that's your job. And if you're desperate to do that, it's a very powerful thing rather than, Oh man, I hope my edges are good today. I hope my hips are in place and my And that's kind of what you're alluding to obviously about being a goalie school goalie. But I really think that that did help me a lot in my career. I think that we would most professional I mean, you would probably agree with this that it's kind of becoming a problem.

Maybe the shifting too far the other way of, hey, When you're seven, eight, nine, 10 years old, we're doing extra drills and reverses and stuff like that. And I just learned how to stop the puck and win games. And I'm just I think also also naturally very competitive human being, which has proven to be a great a great resource for me as well.

Okay. So how did how did it get started for you? Like, how did you end up being a goalie and then obviously develop that competitive nature? But what where were the where were the first sort of I'm this is what I love. This is what I love to do.

How did that all start for you?

Pretty standard, honestly. Like, just the classic goalie rotation, throw a kid in, and then I actually played, and I was really good. Like, it was like, okay. This there's something. Something you just like understands.

You know, it just comes, I think, naturally to some people. Not saying that I'm like Frederik Andersen natural level, that type of thing, but I think it came a little more naturally to me. B, I think I just loved hockey. I spent all day at the rink, grew up in a town where I was lucky enough, like the rink was just open all day, all night. So I would have my mom drop me off there and I would spend the day, whether it was alone or with friends, or I had no really agenda of, like, spending time with friends.

I just loved skating. I would play player as much as I could. I played player a lot more actually growing up until I was probably 14 or 15. I got into high school. But until then, like, I would skate out at every open skate.

I think that that is one thing that maybe helped me a lot. And I just I just love hockey, and I still love it. I I there's been obviously points, I think, like, for everybody, but you you fall out of love with it at times and you hate it at times. And when it's January, you hate it. But that's what I always come back to is I just I love playing the game, and I love playing goalie.

And then and I really love getting better at goalie. That's my addiction. So I think I'm I'm really lucky in that way.

I love the phrase about not putting guardrails on your game. So when you got to a point, and I don't know if that was in high school where all of a sudden there was a goalie coach, how did you like, there's two things there. Right? Not putting guardrails on early on was was important to develop the puck stopping, the ability to win the competitiveness, but then you say you, you know, you love the position and all those things. How did those things start to come together for you when you first got a goalie coach or even throughout the years in terms of finding that balance between what made you who you are and some of the I mean, it's always evolving.

Right? The position's always changing.

Yeah. I think I think, you know, really enjoying hockey, it goes back to that a lot because even when I was, you know, probably 10, 12, whatever, all the way to the point past that, I loved watching. I would watch, and I would learn. And I would watch, and I would learn. And I didn't I had a my first experience with the goalie coach was when I was in Omaha in juniors. They had a goalie coach there.

I I battled him really hard. I I fought him and it's funny because that's still like a calling card of Alex Lyon. You could probably talk to any goalie coach I've had and they say like, yeah, he's kind of miserable to work with. But I just think that, like, retaining those aspects of my game, like we just talked about, like, playing freely, being a competitor, playing to win the game are more important and always supersede being a goalie. And so, like, that first goalie coaching experience I had, it was tough for me because we're going over video and all this.

And I'm like, I I just I understand how to play the game. I know how to win games. I know how to play. I have a great feel. Just don't don't throw me off to that.

And then I got to Yale. We had a full time goalie coach there and same thing. Like, I we battled. But at the same time, it's it was never like, oh, I don't I don't wanna get better. I don't wanna learn.

It's just I was just very sick like, secretive and felt like I knew what made me good. And then it was interesting when I got to Philly right away, I think I had a little bit less confidence there, but I really worked with the goalie coaches hard and and really trained my game in a very classical, like, we kind of think of it as goalie school goalies now. I've really, really leaned into that for probably like three years where I was playing the game as a goalie first and a competitor second. It wasn't the greatest experience for me in Philly, but the guys there, I don't know if you know them, Kim Dillabaugh and

I know Kim, they, yeah, they used to I mean, I know Kim and and Brady dating back to obviously, Ian Clark was the guy who introduced me to the game.

Right.

And back when he had GDI schools, Kim and Brady were both involved. So I know them both well.

And they both they both see the game very much through that lens, which is is it is what it is. And but but they they really taught me, okay. This is the technical the very, very technical side. And so I I was really grinding on that for, like I said, three or four years. And it wasn't the best experience for me in Philly, but it put certain guardrails on my game where then I had to figure out how to marry those two sides of being very technical while also being very competitive and figuring out how to use your emotions and use your brain in the right way.

And so I think that that was very good for me and probably created some longevity for me. And it's funny because as I get older, I find myself reverting back to my 15 year old self. I try more and more to tap into that. I try to get less away from the rigidity of of goaltending. But, again, it's just always a balance.

And as you know, it's like some guys lean on the very technical side. Some guys I'm naturally just I like being competitive and winning the game. And if those are the things I'm focusing on, usually usually good things happen. Okay.

I was gonna say, like, like, I feel like goaltending like, there what I love about it, what's made me passionate about it is, like, we're, like, 260 something episodes in, and there is no one way to do it. Right? Like, there is no everything is a sliding scale, you know, between technique and feel, like, all the different aspects. Everybody sort of has a different spot on the scale, and they all combine in different ways. When you talk about the rigidity of sort of more the more structured approach to the more freeing competing part and finding that balance, like, are there any examples you can give me where you're you're learning a new technique?

Because at certain point, some of that technical stuff will allow you to get to spots to compete faster. Is there an example you can find that that you remember there? It's like yeah.

I think about a lot is how do I allow my technique to creep into my game just enough so that you can then play completely freely without thinking? And that's what you're talking about. Right? Everybody's trying and that's kind of the flow state. Obviously, that's what we're all trying to achieve.

You put it you you you just nailed it on the head, and that's what I think about a lot is how do I allow my technique to creep into my game just enough so that you can then play completely freely without thinking? And that's what you're talking about. Right? Everybody's trying and that's kind of the flow state. Obviously, that's what we're all trying to achieve.

Right. But for sure, some some technical things, especially I I'm a big believer that post play is is maybe the most critical part of the, like, technical side of goaltending. If you can operate on your posts, in and around your posts, the game is so extremely fast and players are so dang good and smart. You know, players I don't know if you can feel this as well, but players are starting to think like goalies. And they're starting more and more to understand why goalies do the things they do, which is really smart.

And and there's still a lot of it's still, like, unknown to a lot of players. I would never sit down with a player and be like, this is what you should do because that's just obviously like giving the answers to the test, but they're getting way smarter. And so it's like, then you have to figure out ways to do that. I think post play, if you if you can have great post play and and I think that's a calling card of all of the goalies who have been really good for a long time. Post play because that's a lot of where the game is played.

So for sure, that technical side of, like, if I can just get this super habitual but, yeah, I work on post play probably most of my time most of my technical time on the ice, I would say.

Oh, that's interesting because as I was clipping video, to hopefully do a ProReads after we wind this down, just was so impressed with how well and we think of post play. I think I don't think we, but I'd say, look, the general public looks at things like reverse, and all they see is the times where maybe it doesn't work or a guy picks a spot on and exploits it. Yes. And, like, to me, it was the entries and the exits and how you're getting to spots off your post and low high plays. Because you're right.

Players have figured out how to attack us, and they are thinking you know, they're about twenty years behind, but they're getting there. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that those low high plays that take you into your post and force you to get off, you're moving off it just like I was like, wow. This is impressive.

So it's the there's a great example where the technique allows you to get to the compete.

Right. Right. That I mean and, really, the way that I look at it is like, okay. Post play, a lot of the game is played around the post, whether it's wraps, short side. Like you said, those things are much more difficult than they look.

And I think that that's where a lot of the disparity comes in where it's like, it it really doesn't feel great to be, like, have your hip coiled and you're leaning into the post ready to explode. From a TV angle, it looks easy, but it's a very painful. It's not a very painful, but it's not like a comfortable place to be. And so I think that's where a lot of the disparity comes in where it's like, it it it it's difficult on your body, but the guys at the top are so smooth and so good and make it look so easy that it you could probably

be like, oh, why don't you just do

this every time? It's it is a very difficult skill, I think. And I and I still have so much longer to go and but one of those types of things where you can just never be good enough at it.

Okay. So that's that there's brings a great question. And I get you know, being at the USA Hockey National Goal Tending Symposium, one of the topics of conversation. Right? Like, know we need to perfect it or we need to get better at it because it helps us move in and out and and follow plays as they move around the zone.

Post play is important. And yet we also know that, you know, the human body wasn't designed to butterfly, and it sure as hell wasn't designed for reverse VH. So as you're learning these new things, any tips along the way in terms of, like, do you have do do you need to limit your reps in that, even when you're trying to perfect a new skill, or are there things you've learned in terms of training that have allowed your body to to manage it better?

Yeah. Two things. One, one thing that really helped me was and I think I don't I don't necessarily wanna give this away too much, but I think that goalie will I think in ten, fifteen years, you'll see every goalie going skate lace on post. I don't think that you'll see blade on post anymore or shit. I mean, obviously, shit on post has kind of disappeared too for the most part.

Right.

But I think blade on post is a big problem.

You gotta lean further over. Right? There's a bigger gap.

That but if you think about it, you're also bringing your foot in and wedging it into your body. And like you said, you're trying to lean over the top of that. Whereas if you can just go skate lace on post, your foot is completely extended. So all you have to do at that point is push instead of trying to push with your foot and then also drag it back at the same time. So if you just have that one lever of pushing rather than it's wedged and you're dragging it along, I I think that's really important.

And I think that oh, I I think I see more and more people doing it all the time, but that that helped me a lot. One another thing that really changed the way that I look at post play is working with Bob. He's he's by far the smartest goal I've ever worked with, but he always just talked about how you want to make things as easy and repeatable as possible. And so it's gonna be different for every person, how their body works, how their body connects to each other. But you should try to find ways to make things as easy as possible on yourself because that's how you're gonna get the most explosion, the best reaction time, the most comfortability.

And that's ultimately what you're looking for as a goalie. It's just being comfortable in your own environment.

So you mentioned skate lace on post, and this has been a little bit of a and I admit we had it wrong at the beginning. Like, we saw gear companies, they're always evolving. They're always, you know, bringing new things, and the idea of elastic toe ties seemed to make sense. Back in the day when we were worried about pads, you know, you get out of the butterfly and that little elasticity would help them sort of snap back square rather than remain rotated. Right?

That was the thought process. Right. Then as this has evolved, we've sort of gone the other way, and we've said the same thing. Like, elasticity in that gap between the bottom of the skate and the or the toe of the skate and the bottom of the pad, like, elasticity inevitably, if I go in there, it's less it it's harder to get that spot because there it's pulled tight. And then when I go to push off, there's give.

So I'm curious. How have you are you just, like, back to, like, knots in a specific length? How have you solved that from an equipment standpoint?

Yeah. Length length for sure. This is also a pretty good one that I think is very underutilized, but I'm gonna throw it out there. One thing that is really I well, this really frustrates me, but I'm just gonna go on a little tangent.

Here we go. Here we go. I like it.

When your when your lace is whatever, even if it's this much off of your skate, like, that's probably pretty standard. Maybe like, I don't know. Here's like a tiny here's here's the lid of a coffee cup. I'll give you a good reference here. But maybe the skate lace is this far off the skate from the Two

inches. Whatever.

Pretty standard. It gets bigger and bigger. I'm six feet tall. I'm not mobile. I don't have a wide butterfly by any stretch of the imagination, but I actually move my toe tie.

So it's probably like almost double the length of this coffee cup lid. And it creates an incredible amount of width in my butterfly that is not natural to my body. My pads fall off my feet. Like, they're they're this far extended from my shin to my pad when I mean my butterfly.

For the podcast folks, we're talking probably about, like, five, six inches there.

Five, six inches. And if you think about it, you go down on your knees and your knees are kinda like this with, like, a little bit of external or internal rotation with, like, your you know how I'm saying? That feeling of, like, when your feet are flat, but your hips are internally rotated.

Yep.

It just creates a natural gap. So you can actually create a much bigger butterfly without stretching your hips, without putting extra pressure on your groins or your core. And it's just like a really, I mean, that's for me, that's probably like 15 goals a year, maybe ten, fifteen goals a year. If it

just Just having the the having width, you mean?

Having the width. Yeah. And so it goes from here's your butterfly of your natural body to all of a sudden, you're whatever, three, four inches on either side. Like that is an enormous amount of space in a place where shooters are shooting more all the time of 12 inches off the ice, hit the post glove. Like that's the bread and butter now.

Yep. As it should be. And so I just think that it really saves I don't know. I'm not gonna get into too too much more, but I I think that that's something that I I hope goalies start to younger I don't know. I don't even know because young goalies hips are obviously much more wide and better than mine.

So but I do think that is a very effective way to create width in your butterfly without actually putting more strain on your body.

And it makes for easy entries and exits for you too as we've talked about.

Right. And your pad sits very loose on your leg. It's something that's very hard to get used to. But once you're used to it and comfortable with it, it's it's a no brainer. And that's kind of

Yeah. Go ahead.

I was just gonna say that's kind of like where I first thought about this is when Price, like, in I would say, like, when he had the when he had the Vaughns, the red Vaughns with the cool flame logo Yes. Maybe, like, two sets after that, like, specifically the P4s where they were all white with a one red stripe, if you can remember those.

I can. I got a picture of them on the wall here because we we were we did we we literally, like, were and then when he launched EFlex, we were literally working with CCM at the time and, like, helping with the campaign. And I yeah. I got it all here.

Yeah. But but you remember, like, he had that look that everybody was trying to achieve where it was so tight to the knee and it sat, like, this high above his skate and it looked so cool. And his thigh rise came up to, like, his hip flexor and he was doing that when nobody else was doing that. And I just remember looking at that, like, is it like that? And it took me two years to figure out how to do that, but he was way ahead of the game.

Obviously, like, the knee where the knee lands is so much more important than what happens around the foot. Anything with your pad below the knee, it's honestly doesn't really matter that much. So that's kind of where I learned it, and I and I just figured it out. And it took me a long time, but but I think that is a smart thing to do for sure.

Well, it's funny. So because also the part of freeing that up was remember he was the first one to sort of take the knee elastic knee strap and put it down Yes. The calf as opposed to wrapping around the knee and create a little freedom in that. And now that you're saying this, it reminds me, we have a video of him in the locker room from our what we used to do on the ice every week where I saw the same thing. The kids that came to the camp all got a brand new set of pads, CCM, and they weren't putting the knots in.

And so I remember saying to Carey after the first ice session, can you walk these kids through the how and why? And so we have this fantastic video of him in in the locker room basically sharing the exact same thing that you're sharing, and I'm thinking to myself, I really need to republish that and remind people that it's there because all these years later, he was ahead of his time.

He was so far ahead of his time. I mean and then I learned some like other things from some other guys like, know who actually is Ralph is really good with that? It was Dustin Tokarski who was his backup.

Get huge get yeah. Yeah.

And he had huge but you would never realize that he's five ten and a half. You know? He finds ways. And and that's that's the the ultimate, like, the ultimate point is you finding ways to make yourself bigger while still moving with freedom as your natural human self.

And and that takes a willingness to look at how other people are doing it. It takes a willingness to think about the game as much as you talk about, you know, like, the to goalie, to think goalie. You talked earlier about loving to watch the game. Did you like, sounds like you're a guy that watched a lot of hockey. I feel like that's a little bit lost for the kids these days.

They just watch the highlights and don't watch a lot of hockey.

I've I've yeah. I I I love watching hockey, so it's not a chore for me. Like, I'm a big believer in watching hockey. Just obviously, if you love the game, it's gonna yield better results than if you don't. There's plenty of NHL players who hate hockey and hate watching hockey.

I've met a few.

Yeah. I've met a few. Yeah. They're just really good at it.

They're just really good at it, and that's I I can't get away with that. You know, on some degree, I have to love the game in order to succeed to my maximum capacity. But I also think that it's like being an NFL quarterback where you just create the Rolodex in your head of, I've seen this. I've seen this. I've seen this.

Like like you said with Mitch Korn creating those trends, it's not that complicated. It's just it's just a game of patterns. And it's like if you watch and watch and the more information and the more Rolodex pages I put in here, the better goalie I'm gonna be. And I'm a big believer in that for sure.

And a lot of like you said, a lot of people say, oh, wait. You talked about goalies not having experience. And until you get it, you don't have it. But you can you can, in some levels, sort of accelerate your ability to process and read the game, you know, just by watching it. I mean, I remember, you know, Thatcher Demko used to take notes.

He had a notebook when he would watch hockey on game center. He told me when he was before he, you know, he would make notes on goalies and the way they did things. And you don't have to study it. Just watching it, it's gonna add to that Rolodex you talked about.

Right. Right. I I don't know if you know this. I was actually I going partner.

I was I was just gonna ask you because he said you played a really big role in his career in junior.

And, I mean, it was it was it was mutual. He he obviously was a student of the game, and he's a lot like Trey. You know? You could tell early, and I didn't know anything that I was still in my first year at USHL, but he he had a student. But like you said, I think creating environments where you enjoy what you're doing like, Thatcher says that, but I also think I also know Thatcher well enough that he probably enjoyed that to some degree.

Like, he enjoyed doing that. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't like, ah.

Oh, yeah. It wasn't homework.

Yeah. Yeah. Down and watch the game. Like, so I think just creating and I think that's helped me a lot just like, alright. Let's let's just enjoy.

I'm gonna watch like, I try to do this every morning where I go, I'm gonna watch all the goals from last night. Just watch them, enjoy it, see how the games went, and and that's that's helped me a lot. And so I've watched yeah. And now that I think about it, I've watched millions of goals, you know, over the last five years, but it's it's probably good.

I love it. I love it. Okay. You mentioned Bob. Now I know Bob's also I I've had a I think my favorite conversation ever was the first when he first got to Columbus and the PR guy warned I said, hey.

Does he speak? Like, does he talk on after a practice day? I didn't know where his English was at. And the PR guy said, yeah. You're welcome to try, but the English isn't, you know, like but you're welcome to try.

Right? Like, he seems open to it. And within five minutes, we're literally both on our knees in the carpet in the locker room trying to bridge that gap with and this was going from Philadelphia, you know, where the where the elbows were pulled back by his ears to sort of that little more natural mechanics that he had in Columbus. And we were I was trying to have that conversation, and a lot of it was sort of bridging the language gap with the instructions. So I know since then, like, he doesn't talk like to talk a lot about his game, but it's remarkable to watch.

And the way he controls his body and the work he's done on that, what's it like be it like as a student yourself, what's it like being around that for a year?

It's the best. I mean, it it was the best. And we we see the game in a very similar way, and we approach the game in a very similar way. And I'm not trying to put myself in even close to the same category as him, but that sort of was fun. And we we just fed off each other and fed off each other's energy.

And and, I I mean, he helped me so much. And, obviously, just seeing just watching on a day to day basis, you learn a lot. But I think one I don't Bob is obviously exceptionally talented. The thing that Bob is really good at is creating an environment of zero distraction, and he commits to that so hard that I mean, Bob is obviously having a great run right now. What like, going back to the playoffs last year.

But last year was there were times when it was difficult, you know, in Florida there. And I'm sure as you remember, it's like team wasn't doing that well. This guy has a big contract. And I just couldn't believe how rock solid he was and steady he was. And that taught me a lot where it's like every goalie is gonna go through six months periods where they don't feel good or things don't feel right or it's not natural.

It's just about continuing to grind and have the same mindset. And that's where Bob excels, is his brain and his ability to just be on task every day is is his superpower.

Okay. So I that's funny because I I read some interviews with with with you where you were talking about blocking out the noise and the importance of habits day to day and almost regimented. Does does is that something you'd already figured out yourself, or there's elements of Bob sorta learning from him in that too?

One the Bob was great for me because, basically, I was just I had a pretty good game plan of how I wanted to approach things, how I wanted to operate on a daily basis. And once I saw Bob, everything was just cemented for me. Like, okay. I'm on the right track. Because I do think that we have a lot of the same like I said, the way we approach the game in the same way.

Like, if you can have a clear mind and a focused mind going into every game, that is 99% more important than anything else going on with your game. And I had always felt that way, but it's just like like we talked about before, you run into goalie coaches who don't approach the game the same way like that. And so it's difficult to, like, stay on task mentally. And when I when you have Bob there, it's just it it was great. The I mean, the other thing is when you have a guy who makes the amount of money that he's making, he can really create a lot of space and confidence for himself.

You know what I'm saying? Like

In what way?

Just yeah. Yeah. Just it's like with any high very highly paid player, but at some level, once you reach across a money threshold, all of a sudden the power dynamic changes from an organizational, a coach, like that type of thing. Yeah. And so he has the ability much more to stay in a bubble and, like, feel I he's signed for eight years, whatever.

You know? And he's earned that. He's grinded for that. He deserves that every penny of it. But there is a level of comfortability that comes with that that I think makes goalie slightly easier than like, for example, it took me a long time to figure out how to go from the NHL to the or the AHL to the NHL.

I'm still struggle with it at times. But it was just difficult for me because I was always like, alright. I need to have one of the best games. You don't and you try not to think like that. But You're

you're adding pressure inherently. Yeah.

Right. It's just human nature. It's just human nature. And so, you know, pedigree, how committed the franchise is to you, those those play huge factors. And I've seen and and and I'm lucky.

I'm one of the lucky ones. Like, there's ten, fifteen guys that I've played with who I'm like, this person is so ridiculously talented. If they would have somebody in the organization who is like, no. This guy's awesome. We need to put our chips in way more on this guy.

I think that they would have succeeded. And I think you give them a little time, they probably would have succeeded and maybe even been great NHL goalies. But those are the games that you, a, you're trying to to block out while also simultaneously playing the game the right way.

Right. That and that's that's like, it's inherently if you're thinking about the pressure of the moment or adding pressure to it because, like you said, you don't have the luxury of knowing that, hey. If this doesn't go great, I'm back tomorrow, and every nothing will change. You're adding like, I mean, we get right down to the, like, right down to the biomechanics. Right?

Like, pressure can add tension if you try you can't try too hard in this position. Right? You add tension. You're done.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. You can't and that's a great Dustin Tokarski quote, but he said if you can't force your way into saves, you have to let yourself make saves.

Which is it's it sounds easy to do to save, but, man, is it hard to do in this position. It's like golf. Right? You can't try harder.

you need to go through the the terrible times in order to reach your full potential.

You can't try harder, and then you also need and going back to the experience, until you've let in three goals in the first ten minutes in front of 20,000 people in an away arena, you don't know what that's gonna be like until you're in that situation. And you need to get over that hump, and you need I mean, this is a whole entirely other conversation, but you need to go through the the terrible times in order to reach your full potential. And that's, I think, true with every single goal. I don't know if anybody maybe, like, but even he's had times where he struggled, but you have to go through the the bad stuff to get to the good stuff.

Well, it's it's so funny because we had Charlie Lindgren on and Yeah. And we

have the same career path. I don't know if you know. We we grew

up Yeah. You guys are very similar. Oh, I didn't know the grow up part. I mean, I know you're both from Minnesota and I've seen sort of the career arc. But when I clipped the ProReads, I'm just looking at the saves.

And he was he was looking a couple times at the score bug up in the corner, and I hadn't even thought of it. And it actually planted in my mind like, hey. Don't clip saves with don't clip saves when it's three nothing after ten minutes. Right? But Yeah.

Yeah. He had the exact same mindset. He's like, hey. Look. It's three nothing.

This hasn't been a great start, or it's two nothing, and this hasn't been a great start. But I know I need to dig in here to give my team a chance to come back. And, like, it was part of his mindset his mentality. You do have to, I guess, experience it to know it.

Right. Right. And those inflection points of the game, so important. But, again, like I said, you just gotta hope that you can stick around long enough to make it through those. And then and then

Then you benefit from the lessons.

Yeah. And learn from lessons, and Charlie and I are both, you know, prime examples of that. But, yeah, we grew up together. We're the same birth year. So we play against each other our whole lives, and the career path is shockingly similar.

So he's actually got a year he's a year ahead of me, unfortunately. He's you know, he was in the NHL last year, so I gotta outlast him by one year. But

Do you guys still do you guys keep in touch? Like, do you guys talk about this?

Yeah. And and I I actually it's it stinks for me because as I'm sure you picked up, Charlie is, like, the one of the best guys. He's, like, one of those guys who everybody you talk to is like, oh, man. What an elite human being. You know?

And I'm not like that, but he's a he's an unbelievable guy. He's extremely gracious, both him and his brother. And so it's cool to see guys like that succeed.

So you mentioned AHL to NHL, and we've I've talked, you know, to some guys in the past too about the jump and how different like, I get it. It's where we get experience as goalies. It's where you, you know, you learn some things, but at times, it's also a totally different league, like style of play, the the ability to read off of it. I've always wondered if goalies who read the game exceptionally well might at times be better off in the NHL than the AHL because a lot of it down there seems to be a game of mistakes and and young players making mistakes and broken plays. What what for you has been the toughest part of of that back and forth, you know, at various points in your career?

No. I definitely understand what you're saying where players just don't necessarily make mistakes that often. So it's it's different in that way, like you said. I I I don't feel that way. I think I think the AHL it's like this was a big revelation for me, but if I can cover if I can at least seal the ice in the AHL, whether it's like a backdoor or one timer or something, if I can at least seal the ice, I'm gonna have a very, very good chance to stop the puck.

The NHL is like, if you're not completely square at at the point where they take the shot, you're pretty much hooped. Like, the players will score on you every single time. And if you're not dialed in, you're gonna get pulled, like, pretty consistently where it's like the AHL, can will yourself to games like we talked about. Like, if I just go into this game, focus on technique, focus on being square, be explosive, work as hard as I can, there's a good chance I'm gonna let in two goals. We might win the game, whatever.

The NHL is different in that if you're not feeling it, you know what I'm saying? Like, feeling it, feeling it, there's a very small chance you're gonna win that game. And so once you get once I once you kind of, like, understand that, you just focus on more of, like, yeah, I'm the man. I'm feeling it. It's that confidence factor where in the AHL, find that you can well, at least for me personally, you can muster that and it's, like, man made to a degree.

Whereas it has to be more organic in the NHL. It's just it's too good. And guys are guys are so smart too, where it's like, they just under like I said, they understand what you're doing and they're thinking like a goalie and that's that's next level.

Yeah. I see. I was gonna say too. This is something I've heard from NHL goalie coaches increasingly in the last three years, maybe four. Like, Roberto and the generation before, the generation of greats.

Like, they learned how to manage the nights where they didn't have their a game. They sort of learned how to win with a b game. Goalie coaches now are like, you can't. Like, if you have a b game in the NHL right now, that's when you give up seven. That's when they put a crooked number up.

That's and so that's hard mentally. Is the game harder mentally? Like, is the game I've had a lot of guys say the game's harder than it's ever been, but I wonder how much of it is just mental beyond the physical.

No. And I think Talbot, right, he talked about that quite a bit this year. I think he had a good explanation of that, but but that's just like you said. I mean, you you have to bring your a game. If you I this how I think about it.

I have to bring my a game if we wanna win. B game, maybe give us a chance to win. And if it's anything below that, it's like you're getting pulled or you're you're gonna lose the game. And that's it's difficult to deal with that pressure. But, again, like, that's why I would go back to Bob, and and that's where that mental serenity is so important of I understand my game.

I know how I wanna play. I know how I wanna I know how I wanna be, and I cannot let anything affect that. And it's like a egg, a little baby bird that you just have to cradle all the time unaffected by bad games, unaffected by five, six. And there's also the games where it's like you give up two, you have to be honest with yourself, maybe you weren't great. And there's games where you give up five and it's like, I was on the right track tonight.

And so I think being extremely honest with yourself is also really important. But for sure, it's I find it's more difficult than it's ever been before, but it's also motivating too. I mean, I feel motivated to elevate my game. And I think that goalies I think that players actually might be a little far they're ahead right now. And I think goalies will will figure out a way for sure.

Yeah. They they've yeah. I I gotta be fair to the players. They've caught up quickly, and they're they're now working used to be in the summers, they were bigger, stronger, faster, and go golf, and the goalies were working on their game. Now the players are doing the same, and they're it's goalie coaches have betrayed us in some instances.

They're teaching them how to do it. So Yeah. Last one for this. You talked about regimen and habits day to day. Is that what allows you to sort of hold it like a bird?

Like like, the habits that you have and making sure they're consistent allow anything that changes on the outside to just become noise if you stick with your regimen? And is there any like, without giving it away, is there any example you could share with kids of something that you've added to your game that allows you to sort of create that bubble for yourself where as long as I do this, I know I'm fine?

Yeah. Definitely. I mean, this is this is extreme. I think I think the older you get and the further along, you just have to commit more and more to this theory. But, basically, for me, I think about it as I'm living as a goalie all the time.

Instead of trying to be like, oh, I'm gonna get a great workout in a day and then go, you know, post op and do nothing. Like, you I try to live as a goalie all the time and then have slight breaks just to appease my mind and, like, relax. But I feel like and this is what the best goalies do, but they live in goalie mode all the time. Even now I'm thinking about it, trying to stay on top of it mentally. I'm trying to have the right temperament.

Once every three days, go through that mental process of how I want to approach a game, the confidence, the feel, the visualization. And you can get better at those things. You can work on those things. Things as simple as being able to focus for an extended period of time rather than you know, if you can if you can lock in and engage on one thing for thirty minutes, which is actually very difficult in 2024, that will give you a huge boost. You know, just like simple things like that, but but I think committing to living 100% of your time as a goalie rather than thinking about it as like, alright.

Monday through Friday from nine till 2PM, I'm gonna have it turned on. It's just like, okay. No. I'm turned on all the time, and then I'll just take breaks to turn it off. But that definitely helped me a lot, and it's hard to do.

And, obviously, I do this as a living in a profession. So it's I like it's not like you want a college kid to go crazy like that. You know? But, but I think that that's important. And just the mental the mental side, like like we've been talking about, especially for young goalies, being a warrior in the net and being ultra competitive.

Those those are just things that maybe you can't teach or but you can develop them slightly, and and those that's the attitude that you have to have. You can't you can't go into a game without competitivity and and strong will. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe you can teach that.

Maybe you can't. I think I'm sure some people would say that it's loss getting you know, people are losing that more and more. I don't necessarily think that. I think it's person to person. But, for sure, to me, those are the bread and butter things of of playing goalie that, I never try to lose.

So I gotta ask, Dorian. I said last one, but I gotta pull on that thread a little bit. And I don't know if you were I'm guessing you've worked with different, like, mental skills coaches, mindset coaches, sports psychologists over the years. But when you talk about, you know, you know, when you're in goalie mode and it's but you're not playing that day or maybe even in the off season, the ability to focus and concentrate. Like, we've seen, you know, guys with concentration grids.

Maybe it could just be reading. Like, are there different things that you where you set like, hey. This is I'm not being a goalie, but I'm in a goalie mindset right now because I'm focusing on these things. Like, could it be as simple as reading books, or are there different tasks do you like to go through to get to that cognitive state and practice that cognitive state?

Practice. I mean, practice. I think it can I think it can be anything? Reading obviously is a great way to engage your brain, your eyes all at one time. So for sure, that's the staple.

But I just think about, like, it's getting harder and harder to focus on like, it's hard for me to watch a TV show for forty minutes and not look at my phone the whole time. I think like it is for everybody. Right? Yep.

Yep.

Just like there's more distractions all the time. And I I I try to think about I've looked in a bit more about like f one drivers, but their staple is the ability to focus on one thing for whatever, two, two and a half hours at a time. And I find that incredible. But it's I think about that with goalie too, where it's the same principle of living your life as a goalie all the time. What if I just go into the mental state I wanna be in and then exist in that state for two and a half hours from 7PM to 09:30?

That's a much more attainable thing for me. And so then I look at it as, okay, if I can just keep my concentration for two and a half hours, like obviously in between whistles, need to have a reprieve. And in periods, you need to like give yourself a mental break. But that's the ultimate goal. And I think that that's a much more attainable goal than being like, go out there.

Hey, son. Go out there. Try your hardest and and stop all the pucks. It's like, well, then you have to make 35 or whatever great decisions or more. 200 great decisions.

But it's like, okay. If I can just be calm, focused for two and a half hours, everything else takes care of itself. And so

The decision is just

a to simplify it. Right. Right. And that's and that's what we're always trying to do is make it as easy on ourselves as possible. This is actually I hate to keep throwing up quotes like this, but this is a great Bob quote.

He and stuck with me still, but he said, if your mind is in two places, it's nowhere. So your mind just needs to be in one place. But if it's going in multiple places, then you're not getting anywhere. And I think that's really true where it's like, okay. If I can think about something for, like, five minutes straight, that's pretty good.

Like, just keep my mind on task for five minutes at a time. And it just builds and it grows and it grows and it grows. Being present, being in the moment, all those cliches and things, but it's it is a hard thing to do. And it's a skill that you have to practice.

That was gonna say we we've had, we had Cayden Primeau on earlier this year, and he had a had a bit of breakthrough year. And, you know, it wasn't change in technique. It was a mental skills coach that he's working with. And the one thing he took away or I took away from the interview wasn't the specific things he was doing necessarily. It was the fact he was doing them daily.

And so much like we work on our skating or our post play or, you know, our puck, whatever it is, our body, we make sure our hips are healthy. Making that a party a daily part of your routine will just make sure your mind's in a better spot once the puck drops.

Right. Right. And this is kind of an unfortunate thing, but I think that there is a certain temperament and calmness, obviously, to a goalie. And you see it, and I see it. You see it in guys play when they're erratic and they're not centered and focused.

But there is a certain it's like being an NFL quarterback. Again, it's just like that where you have to have a certain temperament. And I've worked really hard to kind of train myself to be more of that temperament. It's not really that natural for me, but I think if you're a young guy trying to find ways to get better, I think that's an easy way to get better. Like, being very calm, unemotional.

Oh, you let in a bad goal. If you can, like, look at that from a third party perspective rather than being like, coach is pissed. I'm pissed. It's like, who cares? You know?

Who cares? It's it's not gonna do anything. And so those are things that everybody's always trying to work on. I'm sure you try to work on it with your job and but but, yeah, goalie is like a real life representation of of those, you know, know your mind kind of.

Yeah. No. A 100%. I love it. And, I mean, I got a young athlete in the house now too, not a goalie, but trying to without being the dad that shoves it down her throat, just trying to introduce her to these things because I know they'll help her in those moments sort of stay focused.

And then and then it's and and then you realize, like, you try to do it and it's like, this sucks. It sucks like trying to, like, calm your mind for five minutes. Right? But

Well, you said about watching TV, man. My wife's like, why are you looking at your phone? We're watching a show, and I'm like, I have no idea. Like, this is stupid.

Yeah. I I mean or, like, I I do that. I know I know, like and you can feel it too, like, when you go in a bad stretch of the season where it's like, you're anxious, not eating well, you can just you can feel it. And then you are like, okay. I'm gonna commit to calmness and happiness.

And, yeah, these things suck. It sucks to go through that, but it just always yields the best results, unfortunately.

Oh, I love it. Alex, I feel like we could go forever. I've already taken up more of your time than I was supposed to. Thank you. Just the passion you have for goaltending, for being a guest on the on the InGoal Radio Podcast.

I know that our listeners are absolutely gonna take a ton away from this. It was a real pleasure for me, and I know it will be for them when they get to listen to this. So thank you so much for your time.

Awesome. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Outro

Detroit Red Wings team that's massage their goaltending over the last number of years hoping that Billy and Alex are able to step in and carry the load themselves last year or next year without all the different detours that they had to take over the last year. I should mention, we talked about NHL Sense Arena and the work that goaltenders can do with their eyes in the in the virtual reality world, but, there's another opportunity for net miners, that is right before them this summer.

And we also mentioned in the parent segment the importance of mindset and how the things that you're doing are gonna gonna affect how you play. And so we would like to suggest that everybody out there learn more about working with Pete Fry this summer. His first in person seminar is coming up this week. I believe it's in Ottawa. We've got full details over at ingoalmag.com.

You can also check out goaliemindset.com to learn more from Pete and all of his socials. Fantastic full day in person seminars that conclude with an hour on the ice where you can put all those new tools that you've learned from Pete into action. And if you are thinking of joining us in Vancouver on July 20, we would love to see you. Great chance to chat goaltending with, the InGoal team there. But you can also join us virtually on July 20.

Also over at ingoalmag.com, you'll, get all the information. If you're an InGoal member, you'll get $25 off that virtual seminar. Nice savings to have. Good reason to be an InGoal member. And if you're not an InGoal member yet and you go to one of the in person seminars with Pete, you will get a free year of InGoal Magazine as a result because Pete really believes in InGoal as a tool.

If you're already an InGoal member and you head to his virtual seminar, you're gonna get your next year for free as well. So, great value in joining Pete for his seminars. Great opportunity to work on what really is the most important part of your game. The thing that separates the good from the great is mindset. So check out Pete Fry seminars this summer, this week, everybody.

Chance to train that mind. And I love the idea that we can can log in and then eavesdrop on it.

I if you're not joining us in Vancouver, I look forward to seeing you online, Daren.

That's that's what I'm going to do.

And really quickly, if you wanna get a taste of what it's all about, we've got two articles from Pete that are up on the website

Good point.

Which includes snippets from past seminars, the one he did last summer in particular, including some ice time sessions. So your seminars when you're here live with him, whether it's here in Vancouver or at any of the other locations as as Hutch Head starting in Ottawa, You will go on the ice and get to practice some of the things that, you know, the the pre face off routine, the various elements, your hype level. We got an article on hype level at ingoalmag.com. Confidence anchors. What are those?

You get to learn about them. You get to practice them in the room, and then you get to take them on the ice and put them all together so that you can reinforce how those work from a mental standpoint and take them into next season to help you be mentally stronger between the pipe.

Next week on InGoal Radio, the podcast, we will have all of the fallout from the first week of free agency and where the dominoes fall there and how it impacts people within the respective systems and organizations of free agency. Looking forward to that. Woody, get some rest.

I will.

Recoup, Hutch, continue carrying the load that we all know that you do. All that weight on your shoulders and you continue just to do it without any type of complaining.

I'm just I'm just tipping the shots in. Sounds Woody's firing the big shot from the point and I just tipping it in. He's doing all the work.

No. Somebody's somebody around here has gotta work and it's Hutch.

No. Certainly not gonna be me. Thanks everybody for listening to InGoal Radio, the podcast brought to by the Hockey Shop Source for Sports Langley, the hockeyshop.com. Stay cool, have fun, and enjoy the start of silly season.