claver2010 {l Wrote}:well that's how you bounce back.
on the weekly pod, jerry reiterated what angry dick said that while it's tough to drop those two last weekend it could be better in the long run.
deep into march type team here
Dick Rosenthal {l Wrote}:claver2010 {l Wrote}:well that's how you bounce back.
on the weekly pod, jerry reiterated what angry dick said that while it's tough to drop those two last weekend it could be better in the long run.
deep into march type team here
Exactly. Completely different team than they were last weekend and when this team is engaged and Knight is on, this is a slam dunk Frozen Four team. Hopefully, the Maine weekend continues to be a teaching tool for the rest of the season.
Boston College’s Spencer Knight looks like the NHL goalie of tomorrow
By Fluto Shinzawa Feb 3, 2020 2
Spencer Knight is Boston College’s No. 1 goalie. The freshman is 6-foot-3 and 192 pounds, making him just about the perfect size for the position. The 18-year-old was Team USA’s starter for the 2020 World Junior Championship, the annual gathering of the planet’s top teenagers. Last June, the Florida Panthers drafted him No. 13 overall, making him the highest goalie to be selected since Jack Campbell went to Dallas at No. 11 in 2010. He is considered the organization’s top prospect.
All of this is to say that Knight (15-7-0, 1.95 goals-against average, .931 save percentage) is on track to be a true No. 1 NHL goalie, the status that one NHL director of amateur scouting granted to the Darien, Conn., native.
I wanted more clarity ahead of Monday’s Beanpot Tournament, where Knight will start against Boston University. So I asked this executive, somewhat shamefully, a seemingly ridiculous follow-up: Could Knight become the Carey Price of his generation?
“Absolutely,” he answered. “Has the skill and mental makeup. Unbelievable head on his shoulders.”
I was stunned. I had to speak to Knight and watch the BC goalie in person.
On Jan. 25, BC lost to Maine in overtime, 3-2. To my eye, Knight did not closely resemble any NHL goalie of today.
The shuffling, edge-holding, overlapping, puck-tracking, stickhandling, squared-up Knight looked like the NHL goalie of tomorrow.
Student of the position
Physical freakishness was once enough to claim longtime membership to the NHL’s goalie clubhouse. Jonathan Quick applied his speed, explosiveness and flexibility to take away everything down low. One reason Nashville used Pekka Rinne and Anders Lindback as a former tandem was that both goalies stood 6-foot-5.
The NHL has evolved. Shooters, equipped with whippy, easy-to-load carbon-fiber sticks, are better than ever. Defensemen cannot slash and hook and cross-check with abandon to clear out danger areas. The NHL’s manifest destiny of 31-team speed is not the stuff of goalies’ dreams.
This has required goalies to adapt. They are practicing techniques such as the lateral release. Concepts like box control are allowing shorter goalies to extend their NHL residences.
The NHL, in other words, is encouraging deep-thinking goalies to find a spot alongside, or even ahead of, the fastest and fittest. In that way, Knight is approaching the league at the right time.
“He has really studied the goaltenders, the whole art of goaltenders,” BC coach Jerry York said. “He’s really very studious. Very, very serious when you talk to him. He’s got everything mapped out, his whole day — the academics, what he eats, when he comes to practice, when he leaves practice. He stretches after practice. He’s a fascinating young guy. He’s 18, and you’d think he’s 24. There’s nothing frivolous about him.”
Knight, enrolled in BC’s Carroll School of Management, counts Sergei Bobrovsky, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Jordan Binnington, Jacob Markstrom and Jake Allen as NHL goalies he likes to study. It is not necessarily because any of those five make eye-opening saves.
The qualities they exhibit and that Knight appreciates may not translate to the casual observer: tracking, skating, staying square to the puck, executing the lateral release. They are dear to those who control the crease. For Knight, they are especially critical tools.
Speed, quickness and explosiveness come naturally to Knight. He does not prefer to express these skills frequently, however, to make highlight saves. Such stops rely too much on good fortune and are subject to volatility. Instead, Knight takes more pleasure in the sound save executed and the desperation stop deferred.
“To the regular person in the stands, the amazing save is the right-to-left, sliding, in-the-splits glove save,” Knight said. “That looks amazing, right? Picture-perfect save. Sometimes you have to go into desperation mode. But if you don’t have to, I see the great save as when you’re set, you push, stop, square, track it in, no rebound. That, for me, that’s a highlight-reel save.”
Unsexy, that is.
For if there is a compass guiding Knight, it is his studious, reasoned and seemingly vanilla approach to making saves. A goalie’s job is to maximize his likelihood of stopping the puck — and, in some instances, the rebound.
For Knight, that requires thorough command of technique.
“I can make some sprawling saves,” Knight said somewhat dismissively. “But you’re not going to be able to do that on a consistent basis. You’re not going to be able to rely just on luck. When you find ways that are consistent and are proven that they work more often, you feel more comfortable.”
One non-negotiable principle stands out: skating.
Foundational concept
There were times against Maine when Knight looked more like a dancer than a goalie. Instead of executing the smooth and powerful T-pushes that most goalies prefer, Knight patrolled his plot of ice with short, stabbing, precise steps, keeping his feet bunched together, closer than most goalies.
“They’re small adjustments,” Knight said of shuffling, the term used to describe his movement. “You don’t get ahead of yourself as easily as you would with a T-push. You’re more on it and on the puck. You’re staying with the play and not over-moving.”
Shuffling corresponds with Knight’s insistence on holding his edges as long as possible. It is the optimal manner for Knight to stay on his feet and in better control of his options.
This is not as easy as it sounds. A goalie’s natural instinct is to drop into the butterfly every time a threat approaches. Some goalies have trained themselves to stay down and execute lateral slides to follow the play. It’s not ideal form.
Elite shooters flick bar-down pucks effortlessly. Finishers like Auston Matthews incorporate deception into their shots with timing and unique releases. They can hold on to pucks and execute east-west plays.
All of this puts drop-down, slide-happy goalies at risk of pushing themselves out of position. Knight wants to negate this possibility by staying on his feet.
“Once you get comfortable, it’s a lot easier to move laterally and consistently,” Knight said. “You’re consistently hitting your spots. You know where you’re going. You have more control. Also, tracking the puck’s a lot easier. Some goalies get so into, ‘I know I’m going down. Regardless of what happens or where it goes, I’m going down.’ But if you hold your edges, it’s so much easier to track the puck.”
“You go down, your head’s here, then it’s here,” Knight continued, dipping his head in correspondence to a drop onto his pads. “Whereas if you’re holding your edges for as long as you can, your head’s staying in a similar position. You’re looking over the puck. It’s a lot easier to track. That’s why sometimes in practice, I won’t even go down on shots at all. I’m really trying to focus on holding my feet until the last possible second. Eventually it becomes muscle memory. Shots will come from the slot and you just naturally don’t go down. You’ve trained yourself to stay up, and it’s going into your chest or into your blocker.”
Some goalies drop into reverse vertical-horizontal (RVH, lead pad down, trail pad held at a 45-degree angle, strong-side post sealed) even before a sharp-angle threat appears. Knight prefers to use the overlap, staying on his feet with his lead pad positioned in front of the strong-side post.
He uses RVH sparingly, like in the first period against Maine, when Ryan Smith carried the puck below the goal line. Smith threw a net-front puck to Eduards Tralmaks for a point-blank bid. Knight tracked the puck, pushed off his right edge out of RVH and squared up to Tralmaks’ shot, which pinged off Knight’s mask.
The save brought me out of my seat. It was the lone show-stopper of Knight’s night.
Knight made his 18 other stops look routine. This is how he likes it.
Mature beyond his years
The quality that York and NHL scouts repeatedly underscore is Knight’s maturity. The teenager considers process as much as results. Not many 18-year-old goalies process with such poise.
“You have to ask yourself, ‘What does success look like in this drill?'” Knight said, using a two-on-zero rush as an example. “On the two-on-zero, is it beating the pass on your feet and getting there square? If they throw it backdoor, whatever. It is what it is.”
It’s why against Maine, Knight was less discouraged about losing in overtime than disappointed with how he played the sequence. He did not mention that Maine’s Tim Shea, who would score the goal, slashed Jesper Mattila’s stick out of his hands prior to his approach.
Instead, Knight took responsibility for turning his head to the right too soon. This allowed Tim Doherty, from behind the net, to go back to Shea against the grain. It was an unexpected and terrific pass and a slam-dunk finish.
“I got caught shifting and flipping which shoulder I look over too quickly,” Knight said of Maine’s winning goal. “I should have been a little more patient. But yeah, it was a good play.”
Monday’s Beanpot semifinal against BU will be BC’s 24th game. It will be Knight’s 23rd start. York originally planned to ease Knight into collegiate life. But senior Ryan Edquist got hurt in BC’s second practice. This gave York no other options but to ride his freshman.
More games are in Knight’s future. Assuming Knight returns to BC as a sophomore, the 19-year-old will be eligible to participate in the 2021 World Juniors. The Panthers, meanwhile, are in no rush to turn Knight pro. Bobrovsky is currently in his first season of a seven-year, $70 million contract.
Bobrovsky, 31, is flailing through an .898 save percentage as a first-year Panther. Based on his history in Columbus, it’s more likely to be an early blip than the start of a downward trend. Either way, Bobrovsky may find his ice time being challenged in several seasons.
York has seen this movie before. Ex-Eagle Cory Schneider, drafted by Vancouver 26th overall in 2004, was looking up at Roberto Luongo for his first five pro seasons. Schneider performed better than Luongo in 2012-13. The following offseason, Vancouver traded Schneider to New Jersey.
“They’re in no rush,” York said of the Panthers. “I think it’s good for Spencer too. We’d like to see him have a long career. I think when he’s ready, he’ll know. Florida will know.”
Schneider is one of several high-end goalies who called BC home. Thatcher Demko is backing up Markstrom in Vancouver. Joe Woll, a BC junior last season, is a first-year pro for AHL Toronto.
To this point, York believes Knight is better than all three were as college freshmen. Knight could already be ahead of some AHL goalies. In fact, most NHL netminders fall short of Knight’s cleanliness and confidence at handling the puck, a trait he honed during his time with the National Team Development Program.
“He could be outstanding,” York said. “And he’s good now. As he moves, we project real good things from him. It’s an interesting dynamic with all the first-rounders — how some make it, some don’t make it. I like his path. I like his maturity. I like his physical fitness. He’s not your typical 18-year-old player.”
Teenagers don’t usually talk about stretching, about Sweetgreen, or plant-based recovery drinks or foundational technique. Yet these are among Knight’s favorite subjects.
This is what sets him apart. This is what allows him to limit reliance on his big guns — in-the-splits glove saves, explosive slides, sprawling stops — until they’re absolutely necessary. This is why scouts dare to mention Price as a future comparable.
Knight’s story is about commanding every detail. He has just started to tell it.
claver2010 {l Wrote}:3-1 after 2, not a good period but cotton gets a greasy goal towards end of period
MrAwesomeII {l Wrote}:BC just totally SUCKS at the end of these games. They can’t manage themselves at all and are obviously overrated in general. Play defense for god sakes.
Also, why the hell is #3 ought there at all?!?
claver2010 {l Wrote}:just an inexcusable penalty, jerry hit on it without naming the kid.
claver2010 {l Wrote}:they certainly have the talent to do such. unfortunate reality is that no one on this team has won a postseason tournament here.
i'm still optimistic
BostonCollege1 {l Wrote}:claver2010 {l Wrote}:they certainly have the talent to do such. unfortunate reality is that no one on this team has won a postseason tournament here.
i'm still optimistic
Barring a major injury to Knight, they’re a lock for the NCAA’s, but I don’t see them winning a national championship - too inexperienced, a little short on offensive depth, and just not good enough on D, as you saw. Last night was a huge test, and they blew it.
Dick Rosenthal {l Wrote}:This. Like McInnis should be playing in the NESCAC. The fact that he is in the position to blow that game for us with his lack of talent and on ice intelligence is a horrible indictment of our blue line play.
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