Consistent form allows Cloutier to bounce back
Iain MacIntyre
Vancouver Sun
CANADA.COM
Goaltending is not like riding a bike. It is more like brain surgery, chainsaw juggling and pick-pocketry -- professions that demand precise, constant practice, where rustiness means losing a hand or a patient.
In the National Hockey League, goaltenders spell layoff L-O-S-S.
Vancouver Canuck Dan Cloutier paid for his brief, Christmastime layoff with only one poor game. This is a bargain.
A year ago, when Cloutier missed five weeks due to an ankle injury, it took him six games, four of them losses, to regain his form.
Cloutier said Friday his less severe injury, a strained knee, has made it easier to recover his form this season. But he conceded better fundamentals make it easier, too.
Cloutier is a better goalie than he was a year ago, more sound positionally and less reliant on athleticism and "feel."
His footwork is stronger, and so is his belief in what he is doing.
"Maybe before if I had a bad game, I'd try to change things," Cloutier said the morning after stopping 17 of 19 shots in a 3-2 victory against the Montreal Canadiens. "Now I believe in what I'm doing. Instead of thinking what I should have done, I'm sticking to what I've been taught the last couple of years."
So goaltending is not like riding a bike, it's like golf.
Build a fundamentally sound, repeating swing, and a golfer can go weeks without playing and still hit the ball well.
Play on feel and the woods will be alive with the sound of Surlyn after a layoff.
What Cloutier has been taught, first by former goaltending coach Andy Moog and now by part-time instructor Ian Clark, is to maintain body position and angles.
Any goalie -- well, maybe not Martin Brochu or Hardy Astrom -- can make the first save. Cloutier has learned how to better stop the second and third shots, moving his feet to keep his body square to shooters instead of diving around his goal crease.
Cloutier missed four games due to his Dec. 17 knee injury and upon his return, last Saturday, teammates scored a touchdown for him in a 7-3 victory against the Anaheim Mighty Ducks.
But when he was put under pressure Tuesday by the Toronto Maple Leafs, Cloutier was beaten four times on 18 shots in a 5-3 loss. Two shots went through him as he moved, another Toronto goal came on a huge rebound.
"I didn't feel my positioning was all that good," he said. "I was maybe cheating in certain areas. And I didn't get a lot of shots either, and that's hard because you start trying to reach for shots.
"I was upset. I'm pretty hard on myself, too."
So hard, Cloutier failed for one of the few times as a Canuck to appear before the media to answer questions about his play.
But he rebuked any criticism with his performance against the Canadiens, and will try tonight against the Florida Panthers to maintain the form that allowed him to win 35 games in 2002, third most in the NHL.
Cloutier was 14-3-1 between Oct. 31 and Dec. 17.
He was 5-1 in six starts before his ankle injury last January, then went 1-4-1 in his next six.
"Before I used to reach with an arm instead of going with my body," Cloutier said of his improved fundamentals. "I used to turn my arm instead of rotating and driving off with a leg. It takes time to learn. You do something your whole life, then all of a sudden your style changes. I caught on pretty quick, but it's a matter of doing it all the time.
"If you're out three or four days and have a bad game, you stick with what you were doing and it all comes back to you."
The Canucks are counting on it.
After his initial struggle to regain form last season, Cloutier went 11-2-1 the rest of the way.