USA Hockey aims for domination as Jonathan Quick approaches NHL goaltender wins record

Jonathan Quick is one win away from making American hockey history.

His next win would put him 392nd in the NHL, one more than current record holder Ryan Miller and other U.S.-born goaltenders. This, along with his three Stanley Cup championships, Conn. Smythe Trophy, and two Jennings Trophies, makes Quick one of the greatest, if not the greatest. He is betting on establishing himself as one of the best American goalies.

It's no wonder he'll try to break the record by wearing the same red, white and blue New York Rangers sweater as his childhood favorite goaltender, fellow countryman Mike Richter, on Saturday against the Arizona Coyotes. is.

Richter ranks sixth all-time in wins among U.S. goaltenders, and at the time of his retirement he won a Stanley Cup, a silver medal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, and a gold medal at the 1996 World Cup of Hockey. Richter grew up admiring Jim Craig, who anchored the 1980 U.S. Olympic team with his “miracle on ice.” Before that, Craig was inspired by Jack McCartan and his gold medal-winning performance for the United States at the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics.

Quick did not win an Olympic gold medal. Although he won a silver medal as the No. 3 goalie at the 2010 Vancouver Games and played for Team USA at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, there has been no best-on-best international competition for most of Quick's career. I didn't.

With the possibility of the best-on-best returning to the Olympics in the near future, the United States will have the greatest generation of netminders in history. Quick, 38, isn't part of that group, but there's no doubt he's been an inspiration to the next generation, with more American goalies near the top of the NHL ranks than any other time in NHL history. I've never been there.

Connor Hellebuyck is set to win his second Vezina Trophy in the best season of his already storied career. His closest competition might be Thatcher Demko, a California native who had a great run with the Canucks. Throw in Jeremy Swayman, Jake Oettinger, and John Gibson, and America is loaded with talent.

Connor Hellebuyck may soon challenge Jonathan Quick's pending record. (James Carey Lauder/USA Today)

What has gone well with the U.S. goalie development program recently?

“I'd like to think there will be a day in the near future when people across the hockey world say, 'The best goaltenders come from America,' and I think we're moving in that direction,” said U.S. National Junior Team. said goalie coach David Lassonde. Athletic.

For many years, Lassonde has coached U.S. goaltenders at various levels, from the U-18 team to the Olympics. He and Stephen Thompson, USA Hockey's goaltending development manager, have helped shape the coaching approach to the goaltending position in this country in recent years, focusing more on the mental side of goaltending than the technical position. I've been doing it.

“We want our goalkeepers to watch the video and look at it with the right lens,” Lassonde explained. “If they can read the play, understand the tactics and understand how the group in front of them is playing, it will help them make save choices. One of the things I tried to emphasize in my role was , I think the goalie is to become a student of the position.”

Another major focus of the U.S. goalie development program is helping goalies maintain their individuality rather than molding them into a single technique.

“One of the things we're really proud of in our goalkeeper education courses is that we allow individual goalkeepers to play in their own style, creating a performance-based model that's not cookie-cutter. That's not what we're doing,” Thompson said. University of Alaska Anchorage. “You can sometimes tell a goalie's nationality just by watching him play.We hope that people can see online that America is a melting pot.League There may be 15 goalies in the top 20, but hopefully they all play a little bit differently based on size, skill and strengths.”

There's no better example than Quick himself. Lassonde first saw Quick about 20 years ago when he was coaching at the University of New Hampshire against Quick's Massachusetts Minutemen.

“What I remember about him is that he was a little bit small, very explosive, very athletic,” Lassonde recalled. “His play, structure and style are unconventional at times, but he found a way to stop the puck. At the end of the day, that's what you want in a goalie.”

Years have passed and nothing has changed. Quick has continued to adapt his game to the NHL's ever-changing styles of hockey, but he has remained true to his own style. This season, at age 38, Quick still crouches low, letting the paddle of his stick lie along the ice and jumping from side to side. Although he doesn't always look pretty, he has stopped a lot of pucks over the years.

If you look at the current crop of goalies, they certainly have a more traditional style than Quick, but Hellebuyck, Demko, Oettinger, Swayman, and Gibson all have unique ways of goaltending. Masu.

“That’s what we try to encourage our goalie coaches to do,” Thompson said. “A lot of them want to know, 'What's the secret sauce?' Where should they hold their gloves? What should their stance be?' We just say, it depends. It's not a fun answer, but we want to help them get to know the individual athlete, allow that athlete to explore their game, and teach them exactly certain ways to be successful. I hope they don't feel like they have to play.

“It's not easy to do this. It's not easy to get the athletes to understand that. As a coach, I sometimes feel like I'm not doing very well. As a parent, I think it's important for coaches to be part of the goalkeeping team. I don't feel like the coach is doing much because I don't see him micromanaging every move. Historically, we've done a lot of puzzle-solving for goalies. I feel strongly that goaltenders ultimately need to solve the puzzle, even though they've been through too much. They look great in practice, but when the bright lights come on, the puck disappears before the puck gets there. , you can't perform unless your coach is in your ear telling you exactly where the puck is going to go.”

The future of American goaltending looks bright at the moment. If the current group maintains its current pace, Quick's stay at the top of the all-time wins list may be short-lived. Here's how the top five currently predict the U.S.-born goalie to win.

Well, here is a list of active American goalies. Hellebuyck still has a long way to go before he catches Quick, but he's only 30 years old, so like Demko and Oettinger, he has plenty of time.

At the end of Quick's 30-year-old season, he had 252 wins, so Hellebuyck is well ahead of that number. Given that goaltenders have a slower aging curve than skaters, Hellebuyck has a great chance to eventually become the United States' all-time wins leader. In eight full seasons as a starter, Hellebuyck averaged 34.66 wins per 82 games. He would only need to maintain that performance for four more seasons to surpass Quick's current win total by age 34.

Demko's 115 wins are behind Quick (176 wins at age 28) at that stage of his career, but Demko became a full-time starter late in his career. If the Canucks' winning season is any indication of what's to come in the next few games, Demko could certainly throw his name into the conversation.

This chart is athletic Dom Luszczyn shows that Hellebuyck's expected goal save numbers are higher than expected as he enters his 30s (GSAx). Obviously, GSAx is not directly related to winning, but it gives us an idea of ​​how many years we can expect Hellebike to remain a strong starter. Based on these projections, Hellebuyck will continue to be above average until age 35 or 36, giving him plenty of time to chase Quick.

Like Hellebuyck, Oettinger is outpacing Quick at this stage of his career. The 25-year-old Minnesota native already has 106 total wins, 10 more than Quick, who is the same age.

There's a good chance that by the end of these goaltenders' careers, their top five all-time wins list will look completely different.

Not only is American goalie trending, but the folks at USA Hockey are still not satisfied. While they're happy with the number of elite American netminders at the moment, they still hope to see more depth around the NHL. The program launched his “51 in 30” initiative in 2016, with his goal of having American goaltenders account for 51% of his NHL on-ice minutes by 2030. This is an incredibly lofty goal. When USA Hockey hired its first full-time goalie coach in 2007, there were only 11 American goalies in the NHL and they accounted for just 11.4 percent of the ice time.

This number has slowly increased over the past 17 years, reaching 23.5 percent of total ice time in the 2017-18 season. Twenty American goalies played in the NHL this season. In addition to the top players already mentioned, Charlie Lindgren is having the best year of his career in Washington, Joey Daccord is having a breakout season in Seattle, and Anthony Stolarz is having a great year at Florida. Young American goalies such as Joseph Woll, Caden Primeau and Dustin Wolf are also entering the league.

These all account for 21.7% of the league's total ice time, and there's still plenty of room for improvement to reach the “51-of-30” goal.

“I hope this is just the beginning,” Thompson said. “I would say that this year we have very good numbers in terms of high performance, but we still don't have the depth that we want. We hope that more goalkeepers will be available. ”

Whether the goal is reached or not, it's clear that U.S. Hockey has closed the gap on Canada and established itself as one of the best goaltending nations in the world.

“Between the success we're seeing there and the attention it's receiving, I think this country is going to be a catalyst for people to continue doing the work they've been doing, or pull the rope, or maybe not. If this proves to be effective for them, they may be able to participate,” Thompson said.

This summer, USA Hockey will hold its first National Goaltending Symposium in St. Paul, Minnesota. The four-day event (May 30-June 2) will feature professional, Division I college goalie coaches, junior goalie coaches and Olympic alumni. NHL alumni and current PWHL players. This is his first attempt at USA Hockey to bring together all of the best talent in the crease under the same roof to share ideas and brainstorm about the future of the position.

The final key to USA Hockey's improved goalie development program is buy-in from current and former NHL players, like Canucks backup Casey DeSmith, who volunteered to help with the National Goalie Camp last July. be. DeSmith was there to talk to the 15-year-old goalies, but ended up throwing pads to teach them directly on the ice.

“It’s great to see professionals willing to give back to the next generation of goalies,” Lassonde said. “Think about that goalie (born in 2008). So they're on the ice with a goalie who played in the NHL. He's not a 60-year-old guy like me. We put on equipment to demonstrate something to you. The kids love it.”

There will be no quickies this May. He will be in the middle of the playoffs with the Rangers at that point in the summer, hoping to win his fourth championship. By then, he had become the country's all-time wins leader and was still writing the final chapter of his historic career. He will have plenty of time to inspire future goalies off the ice. For now, he still continues to inspire them.

(Jonathan Quick top photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)