Totally agree with the first point and vehemently disagree with the second. Remember Anders Nilsson? Played like crap here but played pretty good for the years preceding and following his Canucks two year stint (ordeal? sentence?) even on a crap team like Ottawa. Holtby? Cup, Vezina, Jennings before he came here where he suddenly was garbage. Discarded as useless he was #1 for Dallas almost out of camp this year and has had at least a decent season almost magically. And now Halak who played decently for the last few years and who has mysteriously turned to shit literally almost overnight. Wanna make a bet he rebounds with a different team next year? What do all these guys have in common? Ian Clark, their goalie coach. Maybe, just maybe Demko is just naturally gifted and is immune to whatever bad juju Clark seems to sprinkle on all the other goalies who play here. Except for Marky, of course. Maybe Clark just doesn't have any time for the backups. Whatever he is the common thread.
I came in here to post something similar to this. Clark is a great goalie coach but he's gotten near idol worship here.
I don't think he did all that much for Marky, I give Rollie most of the credit for getting Marky into NHL form where he could stay in the league. And Marky has been better once Calgary pulled Sigalet off the ice and into a management role.
He was let go from Columbus because he didn't work with their young goalies.
He worked very well with Luongo but near the end was kind of a yes-man who couldn't modernize Lu's game (Rollie had to force him to learn to skate when he arrived in Vancouver).
He's gotten two strikes now with two veteran guys - Holtby and Halak. Both guys who probably don't need the preparation and mental sides that Clark is pretty good at. I think Demko, as a new starter in the league really ate that stuff up and it has definitely fit where Demko is in his progression. But I disagree strongly with some of the technical habits he appears to be content to leave in Demko's game.
Anyways, is he a good coach? Definitely, I think the results he has gotten with several goalies speak for themselves. But does he work with anyone and everyone? No, of course not. That's the case for any goalie coach.