PREPPING THE BURGER
New record could fall tonight
Ottawa Senators goaltending coach Rick Wamsley played in the NHL for a dozen years, winning the Stanley Cup with the Calgary Flames in 1989. He has spent the past two decades coaching, most of that working directly with goaltenders either in or on their way up to the big leagues.
Wamsley has seen a netminder or 2,000. Yet when he’s asked if has seen anything quite like what Andrew Hammond has accomplished in the Senators net during the past five weeks, he shakes his head, allowing himself a small smile as he does so.
“I’ve seen guys have runs, but they were more established guys,” Wamsley says. “I haven’t seen anybody come in, and from their first start, have that type of success. Ever.”
The Hamburglar will go into Thursday’s game against the New York Rangers with a 14-0-1 record, 1.67 goals against average and .946 save percentage in his first 15 NHL starts. If Hammond picks up at least a point against the Rangers, he will tie Patrick Lalime’s 18-year-old NHL record for most consecutive starts without a regulation loss to begin a career. Lalime, now an analyst for TVA Sports who was in Ottawa to interview Hammond Wednesday, went 14-0-2 to begin his career with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1996-97.
“When you’re in that zone, the puck looks as big as that garbage can,” Wamsley says, looking across the room. “You can’t explain it.”
The puck looked like a pea to Hammond when he arrived here in January as a backup due to a Craig Anderson injury, following a shaky first half of the year with Binghamton in the American Hockey League. Wamsley marvels at how quickly Hammond has been able to translate workout lessons and off-ice conversations into practice, fine-tuning his game in a hurry to handle the pressure of leading the Senators in their chase for a playoff spot.
“If you have smart students, they learn quicker,” says Wamsley. “He had skills that were God-given, his ability to skate and move, he has good hands, and he has always been able to read the play and he’s a good puck handler.
“But now how do we apply those skills and become an (NHL goalie), of just letting the play come to you a little more, understanding where you need to play from (in and around the crease), how to get from Point A to Point B in a calm manner? It was those types of chats, drills, constant reenforcement and repetition that led to some good play.”
That’s the technical and physical side of Hammond’s emergence. The mental side is something else altogether and Hammond, 27, has not lost his edge or been distracted by the Hamburglar hype.
“How do you know how people are going to handle anything?,” says Wamsley. “You really don’t know until you get to know the person. Nobody knew how it was going to go. And nobody saw the Hamburglar mania coming, so we didn’t know how he was going to handle that, either.”
Before it all began, Hammond’s place was as a No. 3 goaltender in the system, expected to play the majority of games for Binghamton and to be an emergency backup on the bench if either Anderson or Robin Lehner suffered an injury.
“When he was (first) called up, you hope he doesn’t have to play, because if he does, that’s usually bad news,” a candid Wamsley says, of the typical order of events.
“We would be lying if we said we expected this. We thought there would be a few more bumps in the road. We’re happy we haven’t seen them.”
In Binghamton earlier in the year, Hammond was “chasing” and was “over aggressive,” Wamsley said. He owned a 7-13-2 record, 3.51 goals against average and .898 save percentage in the AHL before his recall.
“Sometimes, when you try to play better, you get worse and when you try to force the issue, things don’t go as well,” Wamsley says.
“He didn’t place his rebounds well, he was a little bit all over the place and that just led to a scrambly type of game. It was a spiral that just kept going and going and he couldn’t get out of it. And he didn’t get out of it until he came up here.”
Wamsley has been praised for his work — don’t forget that Anderson also sports a .925 save percentage — but he insists that scouts, trainers, nutritionists, strength coaches and on-ice coaches all play a vital role in player development.
In some ways, for instance, Hammond is half the man he used to be and has learned to eat healthier.
“Let’s just put it this way,” says Wamsley, with a laugh. “If he had a hamburger deal a year and a half ago, it wouldn’t have been a good idea.”