Leafs’ new goalie guru has plan to help Bernier, Reimer
The goaltenders this year for sure.”
Steve Briere is not a name that resonates loudly in the hockey world. The 38-year-old former goalie from Winnipeg played in 10 leagues over the course of his career, which included 2 1⁄2 seasons in Britain and two games in the AHL. Now Briere has made the NHL, replacing Rick St. Croix as the Leafs goalie coach.
The Star reached him for a Q&A in Fargo, N.D., where he was holding a summer goalie camp. How did you link up with the Leafs? “I happened to coach a couple of NHL prospects this year. I spoke with (Leaf scout) Garth Malarchuk during the season. It turned out the majority of prospects they were looking at were all goalies I’d worked with. Then Garth asked me: ‘How do you have all these NHL prospects?’ And I explained the process of how I coach goaltenders. He said it was really good and I should talk to the Leafs about being the goalie coach. I passed my information on to Garth, he passed it on to Kyle (assistant GM Kyle Dubas). Then I met with Mike Babcock, interviewed with him in Toronto and the rest is history.” It’s like a dream job for you. “There’s no doubt I’ve been working towards this since I retired from playing.” What is your philosophy? “I don’t necessarily think of it as a philosophy as much as I do a plan. You have to have a plan. That plan has to fit with each goaltender, the same way you’d build a business. You have to do your research, and analyze and come up with the best plan to move that company forward. That’s the same as I do with goalies. I spend a lot of time researching and a lot of time analyzing.” Have you talked to the goalies yet? “We’ve talked to both numerous times and we’ve talked about having a plan. They both enjoy the idea of having a plan for the season. If you have a plan, it’s easy to get back on track. You eliminate all the ups and downs.” Can you offer an idea of what you mean by your plan? “I would break it down into the parts of being a goaltender: flexibility, strength, movement, save selection, mental strengths, vision, communication, playing the puck. Our goal is that every week we want to make sure we attack all of those parts.” There’s a buzz term that’s emerged in the goaltending community called “puck tracking.” Is that something you preach? “I think most goalie coaches do that instinctively. The most common denominator is if you can’t see the puck, you can’t stop the puck.
“So you have to track the puck. No matter how good you are, or how big you are, if you can’t see it you can’t stop it.
“I’ve been working on vision-training programs and tracking-training programs with a company called McDonald Eye Care. I work with them on tracking and vision and work on strengthening their vision — their sports vision, not just their vision. Not reading 20-20 on a chart, but calculating depth perception, how fast can they do that? Seeing the puck side-tos-ide, top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top. All of those movements in the eyes can be trained and be worked on and can be strengthened.
“That’s what I’ve discovered. That will be a big element we will bring to What do you see as the strength of Jonathan Bernier and James Reimer? “I don’t want to get into what their strengths and weaknesses are; we’re still in the analysis part. But I spoke to them a lot. We’ve watched a ton of video. And we’re formulating our plan accordingly.
“They’re both great men, both great people and they have incredible work ethics. They’re willing to learn and to adapt and try new things.
“I think it’s going to be a wonderful year.”