Blazers goaltender changes shootout strategy

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
The way Justin Leclerc, the Kamloops Blazers’ veteran goaltender, has it
figured, if it’s good enough for Marc-Andre Fleury, well, it’s good enough
for him.
Fleury, the starting goaltender for the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins, has a
somewhat different way of defending breakaways, something that Leclerc has
picked up on and used to break something of a shootout slump.
The first three shootouts in which Leclerc found himself this season didn’t
quite go as planned. He gave up five goals to eight shooters and, yes, lost
all three games. In fact, he was beaten by each of the last four shooters he
faced.
Obviously, then, it was time to do something.
“It’s funny how you can turn things around like that,” Leclerc said Monday
night. “(In the beginning), I still wanted to be aggressive but I think I
backed in a little too quickly. I also think I was more trying to react to
what they were going to do rather than trying to force them into something.”
After giving up three goals to three shooters in a 4-3 loss to the Rockets
in Kelowna on Dec. 27, Leclerc decided to try Fleury’s technique.
“Instead of butterflying and commiting to a shot or a fake shot,” Leclerc
explained, “you just put one knee down and that doesn’t freeze you up so
much. You’re able to move as well as block the bottom of the net with one
leg.
“Before the shooter goes, you see what hand he is and then you decide what
leg you’re going to put down. Really, if he’s faking a shot, his only option
is to go to his backhand after that. If you have one leg up and you know
what side his backhand is, you can push accordingly after a fake shot.”
It is, he said, a simple strategy that helps keep him from overthinking the
situation.
“Even if my plan doesn’t go exactly how I want it to, it’s putting me in a
better position than when I go in thinking about too many different things
at once,” said Leclerc, who is expected to start tonight when the Blazers
put a three-game road winning streak on the line against the Seattle
Thunderbirds in Kent, Wash.
And how has the new strategy worked out?
Let’s just say Leclerc is batting 1.000.
The Blazers have won their last two shootouts — 4-3 against the visiting
Chilliwack Bruins on Jan. 9 and 5-4 over the Silvertips in Everett on Sunday
— with Leclerc stopping all six shooters he has faced.
“I felt I played a pretty strong game,” Leclerc said of Sunday’s game in
which he made 28 saves through overtime before coming up with three more in
the shootout. “But it’s one of those games where you let four in so you’re
happy that you won . . . you feel good about your game. But maybe if we
hadn’t come back I might have felt differently.”
The Blazers erased 2-0 and 4-2 deficits to force overtime in Everett. They
then won for the fifth time in their last six road games. Coming out of the
Christmas break, the Blazers had a less-than-mediocre 4-11-0-2 road record;
now they are 9-12-0-3.
“Before Christmas, our road record wasn’t very good,” Leclerc acknowledged.
“But I don’t think anything has really changed on the road. I think our
approach right now is that we need to be consistent game in and game out.
“If we have a good game we have to bounce back and play really well again.
Before, we had the mentality that once we played a good game it was just
going to happen the next night.”
Head coach Barry Smith agreed, and added that having the Jan. 10 trade
deadline in the rearview mirror has helped, too.
“It affects the kids; they become unsettled,” Smith said. “They really
shouldn’t but they do. But I think they felt good about the guys coming in
(and) they know we’re going in the right direction.
“All the guys who stayed, minus the two 20-year-olds, are guys who are going
to be a part of the future of this team. So I think they feel pretty good
that they can see the future and they know they will be a part of it.”
The Blazers go into tonight’s game at 22-22-1-4 and in fifth place in the
10-team Western Conference. They are four points behind the Kelowna Rockets
(26-18-0-1), who will visit Interior Savings Centre on Saturday, and one
ahead of Everett (21-18-5-1). The Thunderbirds, who will play 19 of their
last 26 games at home, are sixth, five points behind Kamloops.
The Blazers, who will travel to Kent today, are to head for Vancouver after
the game. They will play the Giants there on Friday night.
JUST NOTES: C C.J. Stretch leads the Blazers with 60 points, good for sixth spot in the WHL scoring race. . . . Stretch is on a 10-game point streak. He has 18 points, including 10 goals, over that, uhh, stretch. . . . RW Jimmy Bubnick is on a nine-game tear, with 15 points, including 10 assists, in that time. . . . F Scott Wasden has served a two-game WHL suspension so is eligible to return to the Blazers’ lineup tonight. He was suspended after taking a kneeing major in a 6-3 loss to the visiting Tri-City Americans on Friday. . . . The Blazers have another Blueliner Breakfast set for Sunday, 8:15 a.m., in the Sports Action Lounge at Interior Savings Centre. For more
info or to register, call the Blazers office at 250-828-1144. . . . The
Blazers will be represented by Digger and Spike Wallace, their community and
sponsorship liaison, at the Investors Group Walk for Memories on Sunday at
the Tournament Capital Centre. Wallace also will attend Family Literacy Day
at the Henry Grube Centre on Saturday.
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca