Last night goaltender Dustin Tokarski, in his second game in the NHL, backstopped the Montreal Canadiens to a 3-2 overtime victory over the New York Rangers putting the Canadiens right back in their Eastern Conference final series.
Tokarski was the difference in a game where the Canadiens were outshot 35 to 22 by the Rangers coming up with several key saves to give Montreal to at least have the chance to win it on a deflection off Alex Galchenyuk’s leg in overtime.
Therrien’s choice of Tokarski was a gutsy one, but not without precedent for the Canadiens, as this is a team with a history of riding on the wings of it’s rookie goaltenders – think Patrick Roy – and even a ‘pre-rookie’ goaltender – Ken Dryden – to Stanley Cup success.
The psychology of choosing a goaltender is perhaps one of the most complex aspects of the game for coaches. Because of the central importance to team success many decisions a coach makes on a goaltender has nothing to do with the goaltender’s play itself. Rather it has to do with the play of the rest of the players around the goalie, their discipline and focus on protecting their own net, that little extra motivation they have for helping out their rookie teammate.
That was made evident the other day in a great interview I heard on the weekend on Team 1040 in which radio host Bob ‘the Moj’ Marjonivich interviewed Jeremy Roenick. In one part of the interview Roenick was asked about the play of Jonathan Quick, specifically his ability to bounce back after the initial shellacking by the San Jose Sharks in the first series the Kings played.
Roenick, who played for LA coach Darryl Sutter when Sutter coach in Chicago talked about Sutter’s possible motivation in pulling Quick in one of the games in the first round series. Roenick went on to say of Sutter
“Well I played for him for two years” he said.
Laughingly he went on
“And he could be spiteful. I could just hear him talking to his team during the intermission. ‘If you guys aren’t going to play decently in front of your goalie and protect him then I am not going to let him suffer from YOUR POOR PLAY'”
In the same vein Michel Therien had a choice to make between his back up goaltender Peter Budaj and his AHL affiliate goaltender, Dustin Tokarski. With the loss of Carey Price I am sure his choice of Tokarski was as much about the play of his goaltenders as it was a reminder to his team that defense will win the series.
pucksense 