BIG SHOW STOPPERS
There is harmony in the Canucks’ crease as Miller, Lack work on common goal.
Compared to the melodrama of the last couple of years, this has been a fairly quiet week for Vancouver Canucks goaltending, which merely included The Miller’s Tale, a baby penguin sent from @mammamialack and victories against Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby.
You have to squint with cynical imagination to find conflict, such as Friday afternoon at a suburban practice rink when backup goalie Eddie Lack, watching fastidious starter Ryan Miller fussing over his pads with an equipment rep, called across the dressing room: “Hey, Millsy, you want me to send lunch over?” And Miller replied: “I want you to shut up.” Then everyone laughed. There has been lots of that lately around the Canucks, 3- 1 on their seven- game National Hockey League odyssey as they visit the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight.
You’d laugh, too, if your team was 18- 7- 1 and coming off Thursday’s 3- 0 shutout of the mighty Pittsburgh Penguins, which followed Tuesday’s 4- 3 win against the Washington Capitals.
Lack was perfect in Pittsburgh, where the Penguins really did look as dangerous as the cuddly penguin in the photo his mom, Mia, posted on Twitter as encouragement for her son. Miller was credited with his 16th win in Washington.
Miller and Lack weren’t supposed to play in that sequence, but Miller convinced head coach Willie Desjardins to change the batting order because the starter felt it would be unfair to ask the backup to play his first game in two weeks without the benefit of practising the day before.
Of course, Lack would like to be asked to play any game because he has gone, with the free- agent signing of Miller, from playing every day to starting about every fourth game.
This week’s unusual selection process was publicized by Desjardins, who saw it as constructive and sensible. Talk radio saw it as manna from heaven.
Miller’s honest advice and Lack’s understanding of it illustrated not a divide in Canucks goaltending, but its harmony.
“Our job here is to keep the pucks out and get each other’s back,” Miller explained Friday. “There’s enough people trying to get one by us, on the ice or off the ice, so we’re going to look out for each other.”
Miller starts against the Maple Leafs, while Lack is expected to play Sunday against the Ottawa Senators.
“I was actually looking out for what I thought was best for the team,” Miller continued. “Quite honestly, I feel Eddie’s had a tough job to do a lot of back- to- backs and not a lot of warm- up or buildup. I thought he deserved to have full preparation for a game and I thought he did great with it.”
“I just feel like I’ve come to the point where I just want to play,” Lack said. “For me, it doesn’t really matter if it was the Washington game or the Pittsburgh game. It’s just about getting the minutes. Obviously, it worked out for both of us.”
It is especially working out for Miller in Vancouver, which signed the 34- year- old American to an $ 18- million US, three- year contract in July.
He is 16- 4- 0 with a 2.45 goals- against average and .910 save rate — numbers skewed lower by one awful start in October and a fourgame lull in November when Miller admitted fatigue and a lack of practice time caught up to him.
Whether it his equipment or the rotation, there seems to be nothing Miller hasn’t pondered in great detail. Remember, he is the goalie who after his first pre- season start in Vancouver began talking about humidity and its effect on the ice when asked why he hadn’t charged out to play a puck.
He arrived with the reputation of being an aggressive, tightly- wound goalie, but has displayed positional and emotional composure since the season began.
One of the under- reported aspects of the Canucks’ rocket-blast start to the season is that Miller, working with resident goalie whisperer Rollie Melanson, is very much in transition. He is playing deeper and more conservatively, and focusing on fine- tuning movements that provide a starting point in the net that gives Miller a chance on every play.
“I think I started my career as a goaltender who challenged and skated quite a bit,” Miller, who spent all but two months of the last nine seasons in Buffalo, said Friday. “The game allowed me to do that. But the game has evolved and ( now) doesn’t allow me to do that. So I need to adapt to the times but still kind of keep my personality and express myself the way I see the game on the ice.
“But I’ve got to start from a position of strength where I can be in more of the plays. I’ve been trying to do this for a little while. It’s just that now I’ve picked up a few skill points in there and have Rollie, ( who) is a big proponent of patiently using the crease to play the game.”
Unless it’s in French or off-the-record ( or both), Melanson isn’t big on media interviews. But his success at transforming or moulding goalies — Roberto Luongo, Cory Schneider, Lack — speaks for him.
He is making Miller a better goalie. And Miller is making the Canucks better. This week has made them stronger.
“I want ( Eddie) to be successful,” Miller said. “I think he’s a great young man ... and a great talent coming up here. We both want success for each other.
“I can get a shutout ( last week) in Columbus and he can be the happiest guy, smiling big and giving me a big, huge hug. He almost picked me up off the ice. He gets a shutout against the Penguins and — I can’t quite pick him up — but I gave him a big hug and a smile and it’s genuine.”