Quote:
Originally Posted by HarveyWallbanger
Markstrom likely misses goalie guru Ian Clark just like Sergei Bobrovsky did when he left Clark for Florida as an UFA. Jason LaBarbera's resume as a goalie coach is pretty thin. I don't see any goalie coach success stories he can point to on his resume.
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This is bang on. I don't know if you can massage the stats to show it, but Drance was always going on about how Markstrom's game tended to slip over time if he didn't get some concentrated practice with Ian Clark. When he has a competent backup the coach trusts to give some starts, he can get the work time in. When he's being played a lot, and has less time to retune his details, he begins to make some mistakes with his angles and such.
I was a proponent of us taking a shot at Clark last spring when Vancouver looked like they were going to lose him because their owner was too cheap to resign him. Both their goalies went public with how crucial Clark was, and they had to pay him way more than most Goalie coaches make to keep him.
There are other guys in the league who can clean up details as well--quite possibly Lababara can if he has enough time to work with Markstrom.