WITH PLAYOFFS APPROACHING, GOALIES BATTLING FATIGUE
Behind the mask is a mind filled with a web of a thousand thoughts, worries and a singular focus of what it takes to win a game.
Then the next game, then the one after that.
“There is no shut-off for a goaltender,” retired goalie Brian Boucher said. “The mind doesn’t shut off.”
A starting NHL goaltender bears a burden unlike any position in hockey and few others in sports, and the resulting pressure builds up over the course of a season. By this time of year, with the playoffs on the horizon, No. 1 goalies who have grinded through almost six months of work must battle fatigue that threatens to derail their team’s hopes.
Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning is going through it for the first time, and 2016 Vezina Trophy-winner Braden Holtby of the Washington Capitals is used to it by now. Goalies of all ages have no choice but to manage the physical and mental hurdles.
“It’s one of those things that you’ve got find ways to make sure you’re prepared and ready to play every game,” Holtby said. “As a goaltender, there’s not much room to take nights off.”
It’s worse for the goalies who can’t take nights off because their teams can’t afford to start a backup. Boucher started the final 13 games for the Philadelphia Flyers in 2010 to help them make the playoffs, two-time Stanley Cup winner Jonathan Quick started 20 of the final 21 games for the Los Angeles Kings when they tried to make a furious push to make it in 2015 and Kari Lehtonen could be counted on to play the final nine games of the Dallas Stars’ season now as they desperately claw for a spot.
“You’ll go through the whole night thinking about tomorrow, show up to the rink in the morning thinking about tonight and then you show up to the game thinking about the game,” said Boucher, now an analyst for NBC Sports. “Not until that horn goes off at the very end can you finally go ‘Whew,’ and take a deep breath and hopefully it’s in a celebration with your teammates ... You have a shower, you feel good about things, you go home, you kind of decompress and then the next day it starts again: the butterflies, the nerves, the thinking about your opponent.”
That’s what Vasilevskiy is fighting for the first time at age 23, 58 starts into his first season as the full-time starter and the league leader in victories.
He told The Tampa Bay Times earlier this month, “Tiredness is something that I probably never faced before.”
The same goes for Winnipeg Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck, who is between the pipes for meaningful games and on the cusp of his first playoff appearance. Jets goaltending coach Wade Flaherty talks to Hellebuyck almost daily about what he needs to be successful, and the staff pays careful attention to making sure the 24-yearold is good to go.
Coach Paul Maurice said the Jets are aware of the balance between rhythm and rest but aren’t holding Hellebuyck back.
“There’s a fatigue component that a No. 1 goaltender also has to embrace,” Maurice said. “You’re not keeping a guy like that who’s going to play 65 games fresh every night. He has to learn how to play when he doesn’t feel 100 per cent right because that’s basically going to be his life. It’s the mental part of the physical fatigue — when the pressure’s still in those games and you’re playing a lot.”