Always appreciate your goaltending insights. What was Mellanson's big strengths in terms of style? He seemed to excel in teaching some pretty large goalies... Positioning?
Well he was responsible for Halak and Theodore's good years so those are examples of small goalies he taught to play big. In terms of bigger guys like Lu he taught them to be more economical.
Basically in the past he has tailored his coaching to the needs of the student. For a long time, certain coaches were regarded as "cookie cutter", especially Canadian ones in the run up to the emerging dominance of Euro netminders. I always appreciated that he wasn't one of those.
From what I've read he really did a great job creating drills that mimicked game situations.
Big on crease movement patterns and really working on them without shots. One would argue he was too much into t-pushes, but this is his contribution to Lu extending his career by taking some of the swimming and desperation diving out of his game. Ironically his insistence on this wasn't palatable to a young and lazy Carey Price, who got him fired. But then a few seasons later Price admitted he still does those movement drills and said he didn't appreciate their value at the time.
Clark talks a great game and is considered a big brain guy in terms of "ideas". I'd say he excels in management of goalies who are already at a certain level and helping them maintain that level. He's a good motivator and has helped guys prepare better mentally. But sometimes I think he becomes a little too familiar with guys like Lu and when a big overhaul is needed he seems unwilling to make wholesale changes. Demko has some lingering issues that I thought would be addressed several seasons ago.
Actually both might be behind the times now. All the new techniques I've seen (and they keep getting invented) are from pretty young goalie coaches.
. Actually, it was from China to Russia to Alaska to Vancouver. Good memory! Not sure I'd do that now. Last thing I want to do is get mauled by a Siberian tiger and Grizzly bear....possibly at the same time. :-p. I'm getting more boring in my old age. A nice trip to Dubai would be much more preferable these days. :-p
