Chatting with Mike Valley DALLAS STARS GOALIE COACH CHECKS in with the GUILD
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Chatting With Mike Valley DALLAS STARS GOALIE COACH CHECKS IN WITH THE GUILD On Sept. 25, the Stars paid a visit to the Mile High city to take TGG: I LOVED SCOUTING BACHS DURING HIS YEARS AT on the Colorado Avalanche in a preseason game. Before the COLORADO COLLEGE. WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT HIM? warmups started, I had an opportunity to catch up with my good MV: “I like to tell people that Bachman is quietly good. He’s got friend and mentor Mike Valley, the goalie coach for the Stars. tremendous feet, he’s got tremendous positioning, and if you Since being hired by Dallas, Mike has done a tremendous watch him in practices, it looks like everything just hits him in job guiding Kari Lehtonen, Andrew Raycroft, Richard Bachman, the chest. When you’re a smaller goalie, you have to be quick, Tyler Beskorowany and Jack Campbell along in their goaltending you have to be smart, and you have to be disciplined with your journey. Aside from their success on the ice, what makes Mike’s movements. He certainly has all of those features, so it makes work even more impressive is the fact that he’s one of the him really successful in the AHL. Can he have that type of youngest goalie coaches in the NHL at age 36. Furthermore, he success at the NHL level? Well, the answer is that you don’t has a philosophical approach that is well beyond his years. know until he gets a chance, but every indication I’ve seen so When it comes to talking with NHL goalie coaches, I always far is that he can play at this level. He’s just a really mature approach the discussion with an extreme amount of respect. I goaltender.” feel I’ve always been really good at knowing what questions to ask, as well as knowing what they’re willing to reveal and what TGG: WHAT MAKES YOUR SPECIFIC DAY-TO-DAY JOB they’ll want to keep private. I’m not a newspaper journalist, so I UNIQUE FROM OTHER NHL GOALIE COACHES? keep my questions simple and straightforward. MV: “Well, the role of a goalie coach has definitely grown With that in mind, here’s a transcript of my chat with Valley. For in importance over the past 5-6 years, and almost every being a premium member of The Goalie Guild, you’ll get a lot of NHL organization has a full-time goalie coach now. A lot of these insightful interviews all season long! organizations actually have two goalie coaches, where the second guy works with the minor league goalies. Every goalie TGG: SO HOW DID JACK PERFORM IN TRAINING CAMP? coach is going to be a little different depending on their goalies. MV: “Jack was good. He’s had a year of major-junior experience Like Kari for example, he’s a real hands-on guy and he wants now, had some real ups and downs last year, but came to to watch video every day. So I’ll take him and Rayzor [Andrew training camp really motivated. He’s such an athletic, hard- Raycroft] on the ice 25-30 minutes before every practice and working guy that he’s going to be a great goaltender for us. We we’ll go through the small, repetitive movements that we have made a few adjustments - we’re trying to get him to slow down to go through as goaltenders, and really just kind of make small and use his size a little bit more. But he really just has to gain adjustments every day. You’re going to feel a little different from more experience. The more he plays, the more experience he week to week, and you’re going to have to work on different gains, and ultimately, the better he’s going to be.” things and really just staying sharp on that stuff. Kari also likes to talk between every period, he likes to go over different saves and TGG: HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT BESKO’S PROGRESS? he’s very meticulous with all of his movements. He’s very aware MV: “Tyler has been fantastic so far. He’s a really big kid at of what he’s doing when he’s on the ice, so he likes to run things 6-foot-5, so he covers a lot of the net. But he moves really well past me and likes to talk through scenarios. It keeps me on my and he’s quick. This will be his second year as a pro – last year toes for sure.” he spent the first part of the season in Boise [ECHL], but when Brent Krahn got hurt, he got called up [to Texas] and ended up A special thanks to Valley for his time before the game to chat playing a handful of games, and he did great for himself. So with The Goalie Guild and we wish him the best of luck this year! for him, all of a sudden now you see the technique is coming together, and the mental side of the game is coming together. IMAGE CREDIT: GoalieZer0 He played half a game in Montreal and looked like an NHL goaltender, so he’s a guy we’re really excited about as well.” TGG: KARI PROVED HIS CRITICS WRONG LAST YEAR, EH? MV: “Oh, for sure. Last year he almost played 70 games [69 starts], but he was phenomenal for us and was the team’s MVP. He showed that he could play a lot of games and that he could be durable. There’s a lot of things he’s doing off the ice now conditioning-wise and nutrition-wise, so he’s really taking that to the next level even more so this year. These are the things that help him be able to play the amount of games we need him to play. I think the ideal number of games I want him to play is about 60, and that’s kind of the target for this year. For Kari, it’s the small little details. It’s staying sharp on a daily basis, not only physically, but mentally as well…and if he can do that, he’s one of the best in the game in my opinion.”.