DaveG
Noted Jerk
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm probably one of the biggest ones to absolutely rail on Francis and JR before him as well as our scouting for going after goalies that are an absolutely putrid fit for our system and what our team is built to do and do well. It's like they're f***ing sheep trying to chase what other teams are doing with the trend of larger goalies rather then trying to identify those that already play a similar style to what we have in place and have the most success with. Second biggest mistake of Francis's tenure as a GM was to run Khudobin out of town for Wiz and then bring in Lack instead of just simply trading for Wiz. The biggest mistake was doubling down on that and getting yet another guy that plays the same style as Lack when a goalie playing that style was a f***ing huge issue for the team in the first place.^ and ^^
I get all that, but there are certain things at are observable that seemed to be missed. That article that was posted a year or two ago that showed why Lack was a terrible choice for the style Carolina played for example. The fact that Darling, although a big guy, makes himself small by not coming out and challenging, or that once he's out of position, he has terrible ability to recover, etc.
No doubt there are mental things that affect goalies and there is not much margin for error, but it seems to me there are a lot of observable traits (quickness, recovery, lateral movement, glove hand, how they track the puck, puck handling, etc...) that ARE observable and yet, seem to be missed by many teams.
Similary Legace and even Justin frigin Peters were successful here in the past, albeit in roles that weren't expected to challenge Cam as the starter. But it feels like each attempt to get bigger in net has only resulted in us getting worse.
But still, mental game has a lot to do with that as well. Darling absolutely clearly was in no way, shape, or form even close to mentally ready heading in to this season. Or physically but that's another matter. Could argue similarly with Lack, though he wasn't near the clusterf*** that Darling was.
It goes back a lot further than that. Mike Richter had a major slump the year before the Rangers won the cup and was sent to Binghamton on a conditioning assignment.
I feel like baseball was ahead of the rest of the sports in the sports psychology department; hockey probably needs it more for the goaltending than anything. I wonder if soccer has dealt with similar issues already.
Likely the case IMHO. In a lot of ways the meltdown of Scott Darling this past year after the way he was in Chicago reminds me of the way Dontrelle Willis's career just absolutely crashed and burned.
As for soccer I didn't play GK in soccer at a high enough level to know for sure simply because I was better on the wings and not the right physical build for the position in the long run, but it's absolutely a mental position as well. I can absolutely tell you it's extremely reliant on reading angles and making sure your head stays in the game. And I'd imagine it's the same playing goal in hockey, though hockey seems a bit more capable of being able to use sheer athleticism to recover when something does go wrong.
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