During his tenure with the Philadelphia Flyers, goaltending coach Jeff Reese showed the ability to work successfully with goaltenders of varying styles, abilities and personalities, ranging from Sergei Bobrovsky, Brian Boucher, Michael Leighton, Steve Mason, Ray Emery and Rob Zepp.
The keys to Reese's success: a tireless work ethic, a focus on helping goaltenders make subtle adjustments to maximize their existing strengths rather than fundamentally altering their styles, and a positive-minded but honest communication style.
Reese is not a miracle worker. No coach is. It is ultimately the goaltender himself who will rise or fall on his own merits. Nevertheless, having a strong relationship with a sharp-eyed goaltending coach and being open to constructive feedback can only be beneficial.
In my opinion, the biggest reason for Ilya Bryzgalov's issues in Philadelphia was his own lack of mental toughness when faced with adversity. He also had a bit of stubbornness. Too often, he got bothered by screens and partial deflections and there was a snowball effect. At times, it seemed like Bryzgalov wanted Peter Laviolette's Flyers to play more like Dave Tippett's Coyotes, and that was not about to happen. That was something beyond Reese's control.
One of my biggest enjoyments of covering Flyers practices and game-day morning skates prior to Reese's departure was watching him work daily with the goaltenders before the skaters and other assistant coaches took to the ice. He never just went through the motions or wasted valuable time. Everything he did was highly focused and detail oriented. He was clearly someone who loved his work and poured his heart and soul into it.
Mason, who tends to play well when he practices well, has credited Reese with playing an important role in his dramatic career turnaround as he matured as a goaltender and got a fresh start in Philadelphia after tough times in Columbus. Meanwhile, Zepp credited Reese's video work and overall strong communication skills as part of the reason why he was able to rapidly re-acclimate himself to the North American game after many years of paying the big-rink game in Europe and international hockey.
It has never been Reese's personality to call attention to himself. When praised, he deflects credit to the work ethic of his charges and prefers that the focus be on the player and not the coach. Nevertheless, he is in his goaltenders' corner each and every step of the way.
On a personal level, Reese is approachable. While positive-outcome focused, he is also a straight shooter who would not sugar coat the truth. If there's an area where someone needed improvement, such as tracking the puck or competing in scrambles around the net, he is be honest about it. Overall, he is protective of the goalies and focused on putting them in position to succeed.
An example of his detail-oriented nature: A couple of years ago, Reese told me about a young goalie he was working with who had been using the wrong size stick with his previous team. Getting him to use a proper stick was an early corrective step.
An example of his honesty: During a period when one of the Flyers goalies was having a rough stretch that was also marked by a lot of loose defensive play in front of him and no small amount of bad luck (several pinball-like deflections and funky bounces), the goalie coach refused to make any excuses. He said that his charge needed to -- and was capable of -- playing better and would also be the first to say so himself. Before long, the goaltender's fortunes turned around.
Above all, Reese is good at providing feedback and support. For instance, after a late January game against the Winnipeg Jets in which Mason yielded a pair of early goals and then battled on to stop 36 of 38 shots. Mason talked at length about his postgame discussion with Reese the previous night. Reese and the starting goaltender regularly had postgame debriefings after the goalie coach watched his performance from the pressbox.
The gist of this particular discussion was that Mason had shown his maturation as a goaltender. He displayed a degree of mental toughness in that game -- as well as strong physical technique -- rather than letting the game get away from him. This was exactly the sort of game that showed the difference between Mason in his early years in Columbus and the player he has become since coming to Philadelphia.
Reese's pride in Mason was always obvious when you spoke to him. Even so, he would never take any credit for the way Mason has turned around a career that seemed endangered after experiencing a Calder Trophy winning season and then several years of frequent adversity. For Mason's part, though, the goalie was always quick to talk about how instrumental his relationship with Reese has been in his success. Mason is now hitting the prime of his career.
Now that Reese is in Dallas, Kari Lehtonen can look forward to having one of the best in the business as a sounding board and adviser. Lehtonen, who had arguably been the Stars' most consistently solid player (when reasonably healthy) during his first four full seasons in Dallas, is coming off his most inconsistent and disappointing season as a member of the Stars.
In truthfulness, the Stars' biggest problem this past season was that they simply were not very good defensively. Coverage breakdowns, turnovers in dangerous areas and defensemen getting manhandled down low were frequent bugaboos. Nevertheless, Lehtonen had a hand in the team's struggles. At times, he allowed too many short-side goals and struggled at times with puck tracking and getting drawn too far out of position. Moreover, he lacked the sort of game-in and game-out reliability he had shown in the past.
While Lehtonen has his share of critics, he has had enough sustained success in Dallas to write off 2014-15 as an aberration. At age 31, he should still be in the prime of his career. Moreover, Reese will be able to exclusively focus his energies on Lehtonen and whomever the Stars tab to be the other goaltender. In Philadelphia, Reese was responsible both for the NHL-level goalies and the ones in the farm system. Dallas has reassigned Mike Valley, Reese's Stars predecessor, to handle the goalie development process for prospects in the system.
The backup goaltending position in Dallas has been a black hole for years. Thus far, none of the players expected to plug the gap have done so with much success -- whether it has been Andrew Raycroft, Richard Bachman, Cristopher Nilstorp, Dan Ellis, Anders Lindbà¤ck, Jussi Rynnà¤s or (except for the tail end of the 2014-15 season) Jhonas Enroth.
Some folks have suggested that the Stars may court Ray Emery, with whom Reese worked in Philadelphia the last two seasons as well as during the 2009-10 season, to back up Lehtonen. That's a possibility, although it should be noted that Emery's struggles with lateral movement have become a weakness that is tough to conceal; especially for a team that yielded as many weak-side goals as the Stars did last season. The book on Emery is to get him moving and he becomes vulnerable.
There is no questioning Emery's fierce competitive drive and the way he has evolved into a positionally smarter goalie than he was as a youngster in Ottawa. He's also become very good teammate who is supportive of his team's fellow netminder. Lastly, he a had a solid working relationship with Reese.
Nevertheless, Emery's physical limitations are a concern. He plays his best behind a team (such as Chicago) with very strong defensive containment. For the rest of his career, there will always be a degree of health question mark. Emery had some lower-body injury issues in Philly this past season and has been playing for the last five years after undergoing then-experimental surgery for a career-threatening hip issue.