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Written by Dale Woodard
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Tuesday, October 20 2009, 10:45 PM |
Even the veteran can still be the student. Look at the Lethbridge Hurricanes goaltending situation and you’ll see a study in contrast.
First, there’s Western Hockey League veteran Linden Rowat, the 20-year-old puckstopper and former member of the Regina Pats who is being looked upon to provide leadership in the ’Canes crease.
On the flipside is Ville Kolppanen, the netminder from Finland who turned 17-years-old shortly after landing in Lethbridge a little over a month ago and is playing the role of the proverbial sponge, soaking up every bit of knowledge and experience he can.
As the Hurricanes look to shake off a two-game losing skid when the Portland Winter Hawks pay a visit to the Enmax Centre tonight at 7 p.m., they’ll look to their puckstopping duo for continued growth and leadership.
Likely getting the start tonight, Rowat — who brings a 3-2-1-0 record into tonight’s game to go along with a .908 save percentage and 2.83 goals-against average — took stock of his younger counterpart.
“Ville’s really improved since I got here,” said Rowat of Kolppanen, who has a 1-5 record, .858 save percentage and 4.81 goals-against average thus far this season. “We both work hard with Chis (goaltender and assistant coach Chris Chisamore). He’s teaching us some pretty good stuff and Ville is absorbing everything he can from Chis and watching me. He’s playing very well and it showed against Chilliwack (Bruins, last Wednesday). He got 30-something shots and we lost 1-0. He kept us in that game.”
Having worked with both netminders over the past month, Chisamore tipped his hat to Rowat’s veteran mindset.
“The thing with a veteran goaltender is you’re never sure what his attitude is doing to be like and how he’s going to come in here,” said Chisamore. “I can say Rowat is probably one of the best goalies I’ve ever worked with. It’s just his approach to the game. He’s a 20-year-old veteran and has been in NHL camps, he knows what it takes and he approaches things professionally, but he’s still got a learning attitude. He wants to get better, he wants the team to win and he doesn’t mind helping out our young goaltenders as well. For me, that’s all you can ask for in a veteran goaltender.”
And the goaltender coach looks to his veteran netminder to lead by example for both Kolppanen and backup Brandon Anderson.
“He’s out there and is one of those guys that likes to have fun, but he works hard to have fun,” said Chisamore. “His work ethic in practice transfers over to games and I think our young guys can learn from it. That’s what it takes to be an elite level goaltender in the WHL. I can harp and preach at them all I want to, but when they see it from a veteran, he’s coming up on 100 wins in his career, the facts speaks for themselves.”
Having come up through the WHL ranks, Rowat can fully understand what Kolppanen is going through.
“There’s definitley growing pains in the WHL as a young guy,” he said. “It’s definitely a step up from the league he played in last year. But over the past while everybody has seen great improvement and things can only get better for him. I think he’s going to be a great goalie and hopefully he absorbs a lot and takes the games and minutes he plays and gains that experience and hopefully comes in and steals the starting job for the next three years.”
After a solid start to the Hurricanes three-game eastern road trek which began with a solid 2-1 victory over the Brandon Wheat Kings, Lethbridge slipped back into the losing column with back-to-back losses to the Regina Pats and Moose Jaw Warriors.
Taking a page from the win over the Wheaties will be key should the Hurricanes wish to snag the pair of points up for grabs tonight, said Rowat.
“We played really strong defensively and got 30 shots on net. We went to the net hard and put in some rebounds. The guys worked really hard in that game and we kind of got away from that in Regina and Moose Jaw. We weren’t competing like we should have. We need to get back to the basics and get pucks on the net and go for rebounds.”
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