Marc-Andre Fleury (and Mike Bales) Appreciation

[Ragamuffin Gunner]

this just pisses me off more because the guy refused to take this seriously back years ago and see a sport psychologist when this team was actually a contender

fleury was consistently awful when this team had a chance to win multiple cups. now this team is terrible and trending downward and fleury decides to put it together when its too late to matter.

ugh.

Awesome point Teddy. Don't blame the org who did their best to ruin a 1st overall pick, blame the player!!

 

[cheesedanish87]

this just pisses me off more because the guy refused to take this seriously back years ago and see a sport psychologist when this team was actually a contender

fleury was consistently awful when this team had a chance to win multiple cups. now this team is terrible and trending downward and fleury decides to put it together when its too late to matter.

Yeah, i feel the same way.

It would of been nice to have this version of MAF when we had those good teams.

 

[Kristopher Letang]

Is he still seeing the sports psychologist?

 

[Zen Arcade]

One of the biggest changes is how he reacts when the other team takes the puck behind the net. Plays like Oshie's chance on Wednesday used to practically be automatic goals.

 

[billybudd]

One of the biggest changes is how he reacts when the other team takes the puck behind the net. Plays like Oshie's chance on Wednesday used to practically be automatic goals.

Oh yeah. He used to **** his pants whenever the puck crossed the goal line, even if it was at the wall. Now there's no panic, no nothing.

 

[Freeptop]

Do we really think it's Bales or just coincidence?

For many, many years one of the biggest problems Fleury had was that he over-relied on his athleticism, and made no improvement in the technical aspects of his position. To name some obvious examples, we all knew his issues with rebound control, cutting off angles, and puck handling. Bales comes in, and now we can see Fleury needing to make those athletic saves far less often because he's more often in the correct position to make a good save and not give up a rebound in the first place (puck handling still needs work, though).

What's a goaltending coach responsible for? Helping a goaltender work on their technical fundamentals. Athleticism can't be taught, but technical skills can. Until the goaltending coach change, people believed Fleury wasn't willing to learn those skills. I'm not sure that the problem wasn't that Meloche wasn't teaching them to him in the first place. (See radapex's earlier post in this thread and the article it linked to for example).

If you look back at news articles on Meloche, you'll see a lot of mentions of him being a confidante, and shoulder-to-lean-on, but not a lot of mention of working on technical skills. From day one, articles about Bales have mentioned his working with the goalies on those skills, and how they can tweak what they do in order to be better. Add on top of that the fact that Bales is one of Mitch Korn's protegés, and I have a hard time believing that it's just a coincidence that Fleury just suddenly got better at the teachable parts of his profession when his teacher changed.

 

[ColePens]

I sound like a broken records because I constantly am writing about him in the PGTs are a HUGE plus... but here it is:

If you put the best 2014/15 Fleury on a screen and compared it to the best 2008-2010 Fleury game, you wouldn't believe they are the same goalies. Fleury is so well positioned and let's his athleticism come natural instead of trying so hard to make the huge save. He's poised and suffocating shots. It's ****ing incredible to see how far his rebound control has come since his rookie year to today. He used to be so quick with his legs that he'd lay a puck right out in the slot constantly for rebounds. Now... point blank shots are being held.

Huge props to Fleury.

 

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I definitely didn't expect him to play so well through ~10 games. Not with our defense. I thought for sure his numbers would've suffered, and kind of still don't think he can keep this up an entire year, but he's been unreal so far.

That's not a knock against him, but the team. Fleury's been playing Vezina hockey so far.

 

[radapex]

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=786441&navid=nhl:topheads

Man, it's really nice seeing the goalie coach talk about some of the actual issues Fleury faced, aside from bad puck luck, and what all they worked on.

That had become Fleury's tendency when things started to go wrong, especially in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. At the first sign of trouble, he got hyper aggressive with his positioning, over pursuing pucks outside of his crease rather than beating plays to his next save position.

The biggest changes instituted by Bales can be broken down into two parts: establishing more conservative positional staples and adding the Reverse, or Reverse-VH, technique to Fleury's post-integration repertoire. The new positioning not only has Fleury playing mostly within, or at the edge of his crease, but also more within his posts from side to side, and the Reverse allowed him to be more comfortable and active moving into and off those posts.

"It was a little bit of a hodgepodge approach to getting back to the posts," Bales said. "Getting comfortable on his posts and being able to feel stable back there when guys were wrapping and jamming pucks, and moving back to his posts on those type of plays when pucks came off the end boards, it gave him a sense of comfort having a set plan coming back to his posts."

"It's like that for any goaltender, quite often your strength is also your weakness because you overplay to your strength," Bales said, stressing Fleury is still free to play outside his crease when he reads the right situation. "It's about learning to harness your strengths and use them at the right times, and not all the time. We reduced his depth in certain situations and it's made a big difference for him being comfortable enough to stay in his blue plaint a bit more often."

"I work in practice to be deeper, and if I do I will be consistent in the games," Fleury said. "I used to challenge way far out, but Mike gives me little reminders here and there so I don't have to worry about thinking, 'Was that right, was that wrong?' I can be comfortable in the blue."

Just as the Reverse helped Fleury get comfortable with his posts, working with a sports psychologist has helped him find ways to manage the highs and lows of the position.

"Like at first I was a little uneasy about it, it feels like you are crazy or something, but once you go and talk, it's just more tools to help you out," Fleury said, adding Bales works with them. "I used to slam my sticks and get really mad after goals and stuff, so I think I have learned even though to me it wasn't a big deal maybe to teammates and people watching, they might not take it the right way. It's something I try to be better at; be calm, breathe, and don't break the stick."

So many years wasted by this organization not having an instructional goalie coach. Just imagine if there was someone in place to start working on this stuff when Fleury was in his late teens or early twenties...

 

[Sjoelbak]

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=786441&navid=nhl:topheads

Man, it's really nice seeing the goalie coach talk about some of the actual issues Fleury faced, aside from bad puck luck, and what all they worked on.



So many years wasted by this organization not having an instructional goalie coach. Just imagine if there was someone in place to start working on this stuff when Fleury was in his late teens or early twenties...

Thanks for the link and the highlighted quotes. Really interesting stuff! In my opinion, Fleury's overcommitment was a huge part of the problem, as well as goals against nestling in his brain. People arguing that a goalie coach is unnecessary at this level have no clue what they're talking about. In that case, technique training for players is abundant as well. You need to improve constantly, and keep evolving your game. MAF's game is now more similar to Lundqvist's, although he stays even deeper in his net. Flopping is okay for a desperation save, but a composed goalie making all the hard saves look easy also gets in an opponent's head.

However, the role of a goalie coach in analyzing games and plays, as well as feedback on the mental aspect of the game, should not be underestimated. A sports psychologist can do this for a large part, but it is essential that a goalie coach does this as well. It's not just technique...

 

[Shady Machine]

That's an excellent article. And yeah, screw this organization for waiting so long to get the kid a proper coach.

 

[66-30-33]

Looking forward to seeing what Murray does under Bales, i think it's mostly Fleury who see's Bales, right?

 

[radapex]

Looking forward to seeing what Murray does under Bales, i think it's mostly Fleury who see's Bales, right?

Fleury and Zatkoff. Murray and Jarry work with goalie development coach Mike Buckley, who replaced Bales when he was promoted.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Meloche and MAF didn't work well, the fact that the team kept forcing it down his throat and then it causing him to need a shrink was the problem.

Bales has been awesome.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Fleury and Zatkoff. Murray and Jarry work with goalie development coach Mike Buckley, who replaced Bales when he was promoted.

I believe Bales is still the man in charge of all that, he's the boss in that department, Buckley reports back and vice versa.

 

[radapex]

I believe Bales is still the man in charge of all that, he's the boss in that department, Buckley reports back and vice versa.

I don't believe so. Meloche used to do that - split time between Pittsburgh, WBS, and Wheeling - but then he was made full-time goalie coach and they brought in Bales to handle the developmental coaching in WBS and Wheeling. Now Bales is the full time goalie coach, and Buckley is the developmental guy.

It's entirely possible that Bales and Buckley coordinate on what to focus on, but Bales wouldn't have time to work with WBS/Wheeling regularly because he's working with Fleury and Zatkoff on a day-to-day basis.

 

[joeyjake5]

Not sure where this comment should go, but since it is goalie related I will put it in MAF's thread.

The NHL finally is considering shrinking the size of goalie equipment to increase scoring. I have said all along that this is the main reason why scoring is down. Oversized shoulder pads, oversized jerseys, oversized hip and leg pads, that is why scoring is down. This makes goalies just bigger, not better.

This will benefit MAF and be a detriment to less athletic goalies who have to fill the net using larger and unnecessary equipment.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Said it before and I'll say it again: I hated the Fleury re-sign with a fiery passion. I felt he had let us down too many times in too many critical situations to be given the keys to our team for another half-decade on the basis of a mere change in goalie coaches.

But it really has made all the difference. Fleury's been incredible and my crow tastes delicious.

 

[td_ice]

Said it before and I'll say it again: I hated the Fleury re-sign with a fiery passion. I felt he had let us down too many times in too many critical situations to be given the keys to our team for another half-decade on the basis of a mere change in goalie coaches.

But it really has made all the difference. Fleury's been incredible and my crow tastes delicious.

Move over, and pass the salt please.