I remember Martin Brodeur’s swell with pride during the later stages of the 2003 Stanley Cup playoffs, when three of the conference’s four No. 1 goalkeepers were awarded to Quebec – Bredeauer, Ottawa’s Patrick Lalim and Anaheim’s Jean-Sebastian Giguère – and fourth, Manny Fernandez of Minnesota, Ontario, but born in Quebec.
“I remember you,” Breedeauer, the executive officer of the Devils’ hockey department, recently told Slap Shots. “Those were the days.”
Eighteen Quebec-born netminders (plus Fernandez) started at least one game in the NHL that season. They were ubiquitous and aristocratic, just as they were from the days of Jacques Plant. The Quebec-born netminders won eight of the 18 Vezina trophies awarded from 1989–2008.
Now, they are an endangered species on the verge of extinction. The NHL Nets have exactly two Quebecers this season: Vegas’s Hall-of-Fame-bound 36-year-old Marc-Andre Fury and Detroit’s trade-dead-bound 32-year-old Jonathan Bernier.
Nine are Finland-born netminders who have started at least one game in 2020-21. Plus eight who identify as Russian. Five from Sweden. Four checks. Two that hail from Germany. One from Denmark, one from Latvia, one from Slovakia. Sixteen Americans.
Again, two French-Canadians. It may represent the end of days.
“There are some factors, I believe,” Martin Biron, whose 16-year career included stunts with the Rangers and Islanders, told Slap Shots. “I have thought about this for a long time and discussed this subject with a lot of people.
“One factor is clearly the European invasion – the Russians, the Swords, the Finns, they have really developed their targets to a level they never had before. They have a structure in Europe that allows for development. They Do not rush their targets. They allow them to play at their youth level, they do not advance them by two or three stages, they are able to play in the second league professionally and then take them to the top league. Huh.
“It’s really a development model out there that I don’t think we have here, and it’s especially sad in Quebec,” said Byron, 43, currently an MSG analyst on the Sabers game. “So that’s a factor.
“The second period is probably more than a direct factor of the actual goals being developed in Quebec. My generation had a hockey school in the summer if you were a goalkeeper and wanted to learn the game, and it was Frank and Benny’s Goali School in Montreal. He was Allayar’s brother. He was the topper. Everybody went there. This actually sets the development model in the province of Quebec.
“That school ended because Frank moved to Anaheim, Benoit captured the Montreal Canadiens before moving to Arizona [and then the Rangers], “Byron said, was picked 16th overall by Buffalo in the 1995 draft.” So that goalie school ended, and I really think that left a void in goal development in the province. “
Brodeur cited the development of goalkeepers, “who all go to Europe.” But the NHL’s all-time winner Netminder also said that he felt the lack of role models also has a trickle-down effect.
“From my point of view, I saw Patrick Roy. Then I came in with Felix Potvin, and there was something to watch for the younger kids in Quebec. “And then there were Jose Theodore and Roberto Luongo and some other people who came after my age.
“But after that, I can’t say why, but no one is really going to come along. First the Swords and now the Russians put in development programs. I don’t think there is an easy solution.”
Biran believes there is another component of the story that fits Brodeur’s assessment, and Nordic’s departure for Colorado after the 1994–95 season.
“It coincides with the generation of kids who walked away from hockey,” said Biron, a big Nordic fan in Quebec City and ” hated Patrick Roy. ”
“You don’t have the same number of kids playing hockey in Quebec, because after the Nordic had left, part of hockey culture, especially in the eastern part of the province, slowly faded away,” he said. . “People started doing other things. He started playing football, skiing. I think that may be linked to the lack of role models.
This is a development of the game, just as seven of the NHL’s top 14 goalscorers were born in the USA on Friday. Yet this does not mean that the ongoing obsolescence of the French-Canadian netminder is no less shocking to those trapped in the NHL tradition.
Or as Plante, who bears the anglicized nickname of “Jake the Snake”: “Sacra ble.”
You know what a great weather it is? PK Subban, who has eliminated The Big Mistake from his repertoire and is playing hockey in New Jersey, strongly considered hockey.
Soul of 76 has a year with a $ 9 million cap hit. If the Devils retain half, the contenders with the right side of the blue line can do a lot worse than getting Subban.
I’ve written it for years, but if the league wants to clamp down not only on head hunters but also on the organizations that protect them, then: a) teams should not be able to replace suspended players for headshots in the lineup, Which means that they do not shorten a man for the duration of the sentence; And, b) head coaches should be suspended for the same period when they are regularly competent.
I don’t think John Towers has done enough at this point to be a Hall of Famer. Are you?
If you saw Jimmy Vesey during the 2017 playoffs, you would not have guessed it for the 2016 collegiate free agent class award.
The Rangers beat the Flyers 9–0 on Wednesday, with the Flyers beating the Islanders 4–3 on Thursday. Or as John Sterling said, “It’s hockey, Suzanne.”
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