Leclerc has hot hand for Blazers

From The Daily News of Thursday, March 20, 2008 . . .

Mike Gauthier is playing in his fifth WHL season, so you know that he has
seen a lot.
However, the Kamloops Blazers defenceman has never been witness to what
goaltender Justin Leclerc has shown him the last while.
“Absolutely amazing” is how Gauthier describes Leclerc’s play over the last
couple of months.
“In my five years,” Gauthier added prior to Wednesday’s practice at Interior
Savings Centre, “that’s one of the best goalie performances I’ve ever seen.”
The Blazers, with Leclerc in goal, open a first-round best-of-seven playoff
series on Friday against the Tri-City Americans in Kennewick, Wash. The
Blazers go in as the Western Conference’s eighth seed; the Americans set
franchise single-season records for victories and points as they finished
atop the WHL’s overall standings.
“He was amazing,” said Gauthier, who will turn 21 on Wednesday. “We have a
couple of holes that we’re trying to fix this week but we know right now . .
. he was our MVP this season and he’ll be there for us.
“We have to worry about scoring some goals.”
That is the kind of comfort Leclerc’s presence provides — the Blazers are at
least as concerned with scoring goals as they are with defence as they
prepare to play the WHL’s highest-scoring team.
Leclerc’s presence, defenceman Nick Ross said, provides “a huge comfort
zone.”
But, Ross pointed out, “He’s only human. We have to try to limit the shots
and keep them to the outside if we can.”
The Blazers have done neither of those things particularly well since
Christmas. The result is that they go into the series having lost 14 of
their last 15 games, with Leclerc having but one victory to show for his
last 10 appearances. But this is a case of a goaltender playing better than
his record. His save percentage over those 10 games is .910. It is .923 in
March.
And his performance in his final regular-season appearance — he was beaten
twice on 42 shots in a 3-1 loss to the visiting Vancouver Giants on Saturday
— was incredible.
“I felt pretty darn good all season long,” said Leclerc, a Saskatoon native
who turned 19 on Jan. 26. “I think there was really some inconsistency with
how the team was playing and at times, really, there wasn’t too much a
goaltender could do.
“But I do think in January things started to click and once you start
playing good and you have that feeling of how you need to feel to be
successful and you’re playing a lot . . .”
And from January through the end, Leclerc was as dependable as any
goaltender.
“Ahh, I did have a little road bump last game against P.G.,” he said,
referring to a 6-3 loss to the visiting Prince George Cougars on March 7,
“but I had played so many quality games it was easy to get back to it.”
He followed that up with a sharp performance in a 3-1 loss to the Bruins in
Chilliwack on March 14 and then put on a clinic against the Giants.
“We definitely need him to stay like that,” Gauthier said, “but also, as a
group, we need to work harder to give him more support.”
Former general manager and head coach Dean Clark acquired Leclerc from the
Lethbridge Hurricanes for a second-round draft pick just as training camp
opened. Leclerc didn’t have a good 2006-07 season and came here looking for
something of a second chance.
“Last season, goaltending took a little bit of heat for what was happening
in Lethbridge,” he said, referring to a season in which he shared time with
Mike Maniago, a former Blazer, and the team didn’t make the playoffs. “There
is a tendency to blame a goalie when a team is not winning. Luckily, we’re
just trying to do our jobs and people realize that.”
Still, it was in Lethbridge where he first began carving out his reputation.
That was in the playoffs of 2006 when the Hitmen, who had won 47 games, met
up with the Hurricanes and their 27 victories in the first round.
Calgary eventually won the series, but it took six games. Lethbridge led the
series 2-1 before the Hitmen ran off three straight victories — 2-1, 3-2 and
3-2 — with the latter two decided in overtime.
Leclerc, in concluding his 16-year-old season, had a 2.80 GAA with a .915
save percentage.
The Calgary goaltender was Justin Pogge, who less than three months earlier
had put up three shutouts in backstopping Team Canada to a gold medal at the
World Junior Championship.
“We were in every single game,” Leclerc recalls. “And it was good because I
really learned what playoff hockey is all about.”
And now he’s preparing to go head-to-head with Tri-City goaltender Chet
Pickard, who may have the best numbers in the WHL — 46-12-2-2, 2.32, .918.
Leclerc, however, doesn’t approach this series thinking he has to outplay
Pickard.
“No,” Leclerc explains. “You look at it from a matchup perspective but I
can’t control what he does and he can’t control what I do. You don’t try to
outplay the other team’s goalie; you just try to give your team the best
chance you can.
“All you can do is stop the puck. You can’t score goals.”
Leclerc didn’t always think along those terms. There was a time when he
would beat himself up after losses. But he spent part of last summer working
with Kevin Spink, a sports psychologist at the U of Saskatchewan.
“I talked to the sports psychologist and tried to get my head around not
putting more onus on myself than there needed to be,” Leclerc said. “So when
we do lose a game and I played well . . . I won’t put the same type of
pressure on me that I did when I was 16 and 17.”
That attitude has served Leclerc well, especially with the way the regular
season finished.
He can only hope there are better times ahead.
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There is at least a bit of a Kamloops flavour to the Americans.
Terry Bangen, a former Blazers scout, is the Americans’ assistant general
manager and director of player personnel. Don Schulz of Kamloops is on their
scouting staff.
It turns out that Bangen and Schulz are long-time friends who once coached
the then-University College of the Cariboo hockey team together.
Schulz wrote in an e-mail that the two spent six years together at UCC and
went to the CCAA Nationals the last four years.
Bangen was hired two years ago by Tri-City GM Bob Tory, who was putting the
franchise back together after its owners bought an expansion franchise for
Chilliwack. The Americans lost all but one of their scouts to Chilliwack so
Bangen, as he built a new staff, hired Schulz.
“So all the scouts have been a part of the success,” Schulz noted, “and it
has been rewarding and exciting.”

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca