POULIN SHINES IN SPOTLIGHT
Unlikely Team Canada goalie has taken unlikely route to Olympics
After five GANGNEUNG, SOUTH KOREA years of kicking around the New York Islanders, another year in and out of Calgary, a bad year in the KHL, one game in Quebec’s semicomic goon league and so much uncertainty, Sean Burke still had this feeling about Kevin Poulin.
He saw him as an NHL goalie. He really didn’t understand why no one else viewed him that way.
But he needed a second opinion, so he called his good friend, Sudarshan Maharaj, Poulin’s former coach and current goalie coach of the Anaheim Ducks. He asked what he thought of Poulin.
“First thing I said to him was, ‘I don’t know why he’s not in the NHL,’ ” the Team Canada general manager and former goaltender said. “And Sudsie said he’s a guy we always thought would develop and have a great chance to a play. That’s the position, and as much as there’s great stories, there’s also guys who fall through the cracks and it takes them a long time and they bounce around and then, who knows?”
It’s “who knows?” time for Kevin Poulin and Team Canada. This is his stage and his time to make a reputation, to become a national figure of consequence, maybe to revitalize his NHL career.
Poulin didn’t arrive in South Korea as Canada’s No. 1 goalie and that’s what makes his ascension all the more fascinating. Ben Scrivens was pencilled in for the No. 1 spot. But when Scrivens went down in the elimination game against Finland, with the score 0-0 in the second period, Poulin was summoned from the bench.
You couldn’t put a goalie in a worse situation.
“You see a game like last night, and he makes his first save in that game and it’s a great save. And he didn’t look nervous at all,” said Burke. “He settled our team down completely. That’s what he’s provided for us in every game he’s played.”
In a way, that’s the story of this Olympic hockey tournament. It’s about careers over and careers gone wrong. It’s about second chances and last chances and redemption. And it’s about winning with the thinnest of margins in a tight tournament with little to choose between winners and apparent losers.
Canada beat Finland 1-0 to advance. The Czechs went to shootout against Team USA. Germany upset Sweden in overtime. The difference between playing for medals and going home disappointed is infinitesimal.
“Poulin’s been one of the better stories here,” said Burke. “Considering he played a game in that Quebec senior league (last season). We liked him in the summertime, but he didn’t have a team to play for, so we didn’t know if we going to get to see him again. Then he was in Austria and in Switzerland. You do have to hang in there as a player sometimes. He’s 27 years old. He’s not a guy who is over the hill. He’s earned being here and he’s obviously been a big part of it.”
For now, he’s riding the wave, speaking in clichés, letting his play do most of his talking, but this much is certain: His teammates back him and believe in him.
The mainstream thinking might be that Canada drew an easy opponent in Germany for the semifinal but upon further inspection, that’s not necessarily true.
The starter, 33-year-old Danny aus den Birken, has been the championship goalie in Germany the past two seasons. The coach, Marco Sturm, is impressing all who have watched Germany play. It’s not a roster of many known quantities, unless you happen to know the German league, which Canadian backup goalie Justin Peters plays in.
“That’s a veteran team that’s been together a long time,” said Peters, who plays goal for Cologne in the DEL. Longtime NHL defenceman Christian Ehrhoff is the veteran leader of the German team and captain of Peters’ team at Cologne.
“These guys know how to play,” said Peters, who has three teammates on the national team and knows the entire Olympic roster. “And they know how to play with each other.”
This isn’t, as German television is dubbing it, a matchup of David and Goliath. Maybe at the NHL level that might be true. But at this stage, with these rosters, it’s closer to David vs. David.
Poulin, a career underdog, has been on a miraculous hot streak. In his last nine periods, he’s faced 65 shots and hasn’t allowed a goal. And from someone who grew up idolizing Dominik Hasek — “I tried to copy him” — he couldn’t play goal more differently, as a big, square-to-the-puck, butterfly netminder.
“He does look like a big league goaltender here,” said an NHL scout, watching the tournament. “He looks very different than he did with the Islanders. Very calm and in control.”
Team Canada needs that calm. First against the Germans. Then one more time for the unlikely netminder on Sunday afternoon.
After a while it got quite long, so I decided to see if it was able to make a moustache, and it was. And after this — long story short — I was getting a bit of attention and thought it was fun . ... I don’t feel it in the air, maybe it’s kind of (steering) me in the right direction. ROBERT JOHANSSON, Norwegian ski jumper As much as there’s great stories, there’s also guys who fall through the cracks.