On Friday, Sept. 3, the Colorado Avalanche announced that Kirk McLean was hired as the new goaltending consultant for the upcoming season. He will replace former Blackhawks and Sabres goaltender Jocelyn Thibault, who held the same position for just one season.

McLean, who had a tremendous NHL career, most notably with the Vancouver Canucks and New Jersey Devils, retired back in 2001. Less than two years later, he was hired as the goalie coach for the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers, a position he held for one season (2002-03).

McLean is currently an active member of the Canucks Alumni and co-owns a new restaurant called McLean’s, which opened on June 24 in the Gastown neighborhood of Vancouver. Along with some of his other ventures, McLean is a part-owner of the Burnaby Express Junior-A team in the BCHL. He’s an active guy in the Vancouver hockey community and actively partakes in his other passions of golfing and thoroughbred horse racing.

Although nobody outside of the coaching staff knows exactly what kind of time commitments McLean will put into his new consulting job, it has been published (by Terry Frei of the Denver Post) that he will be with the team only periodically.

To me, the word “periodically” begs the question of what kind of impact this will truly have on Craig Anderson, Peter Budaj, Jason Bacashihua, John Grahame, Billy Sauer and Trevor Cann. It will certainly be better than not having a goalie coach at all, but it won’t be as effective of a setup as most other NHL teams.

Last year, Thibault was also a part-time goalie consultant. As such, his influence on the goaltending was tough to decipher. I do know first-hand that he did an awesome job of getting to know Anderson, Budaj, Tyler Weiman and Peter Delmas in a short amount of time. As a result, all of the goalies were ready for their respective seasons. During the regular season, he wasn’t at too many practices, but I did see him in the press box at a number of home games.

Overall, by looking at Thibault’s positive impact on the goalies last season, nothing bad can be said about his work. For a part-time gig, Thibault probably crushed his goals and expectations for the goalies last season. I also have to say that his recent activity in the NHL (with the Sabres) really helped him effectively hone and coach Anderson and Budaj.

I expect McLean to have a similar influence on the goalies this season, but in different areas. He’s an old-school, stand-up goalie that probably brings that similar old-school approach to how he coaches goalies. It’s a striking contrast to Thibault, who is younger and has recent pro experience compared to McLean.

We’ll see McLean out on the ice during the week of training camp working with the goalies and maybe in the box during a few home pre-season games. Away from Denver, McLean will do a considerable amount of tracking and keeping up with the progress of Avalanche goalies. But to effectively consult, McLean must scout to the best of his ability. That means getting to know the mannerisms and emotional state of each goalie in the system, as well as the prospects.

On the other side of things, it’s quite frustrating to see every most NHL teams putting considerable energy into their goalie consulting and coaching positions. It’s the most important position on the ice, so teams like Dallas, Nashville, Chicago, Montreal, San Jose, Atlanta and Toronto ensure there’s a goalie coach/consultant working on a daily basis to hone the goaltending and aid the coaching staff on scouting and skill analysis.

I personally can’t remember a time when Colorado ever had a full-time, year-round goalie coach. Yet they never really needed one during the Patrick Roy era. But now that the team has to rely on developing goalies from within, I really wonder why a full-time goalie coach/consultant has not been hired for this season and beyond. It is one of the true keys to successful goalie development and a “must” for all NHL teams these days. 

I also feel that a lack of a prospect development camp really hurt the organization’s goaltending depth this summer. The Avalanche did an amazing job of drafting two top-ranked goalies in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft in Calvin Pickard and Sami Aittokallio, but without a prospect camp and a goalie coach to work with them for a week during the summer, it held back their development just a little bit. It was a squandered and lost opportunity.

So too does the lack of a full-time goalie coach/consultant slow down a goalie’s development. Not only in the skills department, but in the more important aspects of mental and emotional development. Goalies of all ages and levels benefit from a full-time goalie coach. They are confidants, mentors and more importantly, close friends and comrades. If things go wrong in a game, the next day of practice is crucial for that goalie to fix those issues through drills and verbal feedback. Without a coach at their side, focus can be lost and things may get progressively worse over time.

Of course McLean is only a phone call or e-mail away from having a similar positive influence throughout the season, but it’s clearly not the same as being on the ice and speaking to an Avs goalie face to face, eye to eye.

Ultimately, I still really like the decision to hire McLean as a part-time consultant. He’s a guy who understands the game at the highest levels, has a passion for coaching goalies and has at least a year’s worth of experience as a goalie coach. He is highly regarded and respected by pro goalies everywhere. He was an admirable goalie on the ice and an influential presence in the locker room. It’s a great addition to Colorado’s coaching staff – so great that I want him to be around every day of the season.

I don’t want to take away from the positive influence this move has on the team for this season, but I really think the time has come for the Avalanche to bring in someone that can commit to developing the numerous goalie prospects on a full-time basis. Colorado truly needs it – they have more prospects than any other team in the NHL (11 total). Without a full-time goalie mentor, there’s less structure and direction to the team’s goalie development compared to all other teams in the league.

It’s simple arithmetic, really. The more goalies you have in the system, the more time should be spent tracking, scouting and developing those goalies. I can’t help but bring up Weiman’s history within the organization and the sense that most analysts and fans clearly recognized he deserved an opportunity to play some games with the big club. But that opportunity never came, and now he’s a member of Colorado’s divisional rivals. Ironically, that would be McLean’s former team, the Vancouver Canucks.

I’m really excited to see what McLean does on the ice during training camp. Last year I thought Thibault did an awesome job getting along with the Avs goalies as a friend and someone they could really rely on as guy with recent experience playing in the NHL.

McLean may not have that same level of youthful influence, but his experiences and wisdom is still a really positive thing for Avalanche goalies. I think McLean will help less on the technical side of things, but much more on the mental aspects of the position. And everyone knows that, at the pro levels, goaltending is 90% mental.

In conclusion, having Thibault influence the goalies last year and combining that with McLean’s influence the goalies this year will be a great one-two punch that will truly boost the mental preparation and technical efficiency of all Avalanche goalies. I just wish it was happening every day of the season.

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