No Lack of laughs
Canucks’ joker goaltender is deadly serious about Vancouver’s playoff prospects
One short week after Ryan Miller went down with same manner of knee injury, The Mad Stork has again moved into the starter’s role, but this time around, he’ll tell you everything is different. Unlike last season, the Canucks are a competent NHL team and hold down second place in the Pacific Division. Lack, for his part, has built up his body following a gruelling off-season workout regimen and built up his game following his second season under goalie coach Rollie Melanson.
As for the early returns on the new Eddie, well, they’re interesting. In his first five periods after Miller went down against the New York Islanders, Lack stopped 67 of 68 shots as the Canucks posted two crucial road wins in Boston and Long Island.
The Bruins game, in particular, was significant because, as Henrik said: “That was his first game (as a starter). The pressure was on. He knew a lot of people were looking at him.”
Except two nights later, Lack was ventilated for five goals on 23 shots against the near-dead Buffalo Sabres, which brings us to Sunday’s meeting with the St. Louis Blues and six more weeks in which Lack will occupy the hottest part of the spotlight.
Is he ready for this? Hard to say. It helps that virtually every player in the Canucks dressing room is pulling for Lack because of: a) his personality; and b) most of them saw what he endured last season.
“He’s battling,” Henrik said. “You’d like for him to stand on his head every night and win games, but that’s not going to happen. The most important thing is how he treats wins and losses; how he prepares going forward. That’s what we like about him. “He cares about this.” Now, as luck would have it, Jacob Markstrom also returns for this season’s stretch drive to reprise his role as Lack’s backup, and therein lies a tale.
Five years ago, Lack served as Markstrom’s backup with Brynas. Markstrom was then a blue-chip goaltending prospect with the Panthers and Lack was in his rookie season in the Swedish Elite League and the two ’keepers formed a friendship that lasts to this day.
Their locker stalls are also next to each other, which made the interview process tricky.
Lack to Markstrom: “I only had good things to say about you.”
Markstrom: “He’s a great guy; I mean a great guy.”
But in a quieter moment, Markstrom offered this about his friend.
“You saw what he went through (last season). It can either bury you or you can learn from it. You’re going to face adversity. The quicker you bounce back from it, the longer you’re to be in this league.”
And Lack plans to be around for a while.
The popular image of Eddie Lack is that of the happy-go-lucky jokester, and Henrik Sedin does nothing to alter that perception of his countryman.
“I don’t think he understands where we are and how big every game is,” the Canucks captain said of the team’s newly minted starting goalie.
“That’s good for us. We tell him it’s peewee hockey.”
He’s here all week, folks. Don’t forget to tip your waiter.
But, while you’ll never confuse Lack with some of the humourless androids who play his position, it seems hockey isn’t all giggles and whoopee cushions for the 27-yearold Swede. Last season, when he was still recovering from hip surgery, when he was still learning about playing in the world’s best league in his rookie campaign, Lack was thrown into a meat grinder — and that experience wasn’t fun.
In fact, it was the opposite of fun. But in the six weeks that followed the Roberto Luongo trade, Lack took a crash course on playing goal in the NHL and while he finished the season with a broken body and an inflated G.A.A., he’s now calling on those lessons in his second go-round as the Canucks No. 1.
It seems, behind the laugh track, there’s a competitor who resides in Lack. We saw it under brutal circumstances last season when he battled like a Hun behind a dysfunctional, dispirited team.
Now, with the Canucks playoff aspirations hanging in the balance, he’s back, looking to write a better ending to his story.
“It’s not like we’re playing out the season,” Jannik Hansen said, neatly summing up Lack’s challenge. “He’s getting a chance to show he can be a legitimate starter in this league.” Over to you, Eddie. “I learned a lot of mental things last season. The biggest thing I learned is you can’t stay too high or too low. Whatever happens, you have to be yourself when you come to the rink, and don’t overthink things.”
Which sounds simple enough. It gets a little more complicated when you consider the table stakes over the next 21 games.
“You’d like for him to stand on his head every night and win games, but that’s not going to happen. The most important thing is how he treats wins and losses; how he prepares going forward. That’s what we like about him. He cares about this.” — Henrik Sedin on Eddie Lack