McKenna’s Mailbag: Answering on the COVID situation, Charlie Lindgren & more!

Mike McKenna
Mike McKenna(MikeMcKenna56)
Dec 18, 2021, 15:25 EST
McKenna’s Mailbag: Answering on the COVID situation, Charlie Lindgren & more!

Tis the season! I love this question and I think it resonates with every hockey player. You’d be hard pressed to find a player that didn’t receive a piece of equipment or jersey as a gift at some point.

I’m not actually sure what my favorite was. There were so many. But most of mine weren’t wrapped up under the Christmas tree. I can remember getting a Bauer 3030 goalie stick and being so excited. Full-right sticks were hard to come by and I loved the heel curve pattern. I think I slept with that stick for a week.

I’m pretty sure my first pair of new goalie pads were a Christmas present, but they were put to use right away. No wrapping. They were Koho Evolutions – all white – and made of nylon. They were so light. But they also had a bad tendency to freeze to the ice if there was any water on the surface.

But that didn’t matter to me. They were my first pads and they came from my Grandpa. Thinking about them brings back great memories.

I know my career was pretty crazy with all the teams I played for, but I was only traded twice and claimed off waivers once. And I think both times Ray Bishop of Bishop Designs was able to turn out a new, custom painted mask in about a week. The first time was when I dealt from the Florida Panthers to the Tampa Bay Lightning at the 2017 trade deadline. The second was when I ended up with the Philadelphia Flyers during my last year as a pro in 2018-19.

It helped that my mask maker – Warwick Mask Company – was based out of Port Huron, Michigan. Bishop Designs is just down the road in Grand Blanc, Michigan. So there wasn’t any lag time between manufacturer and artist. My design has some continuity to it and Bishop was able to adapt it to each team seamlessly.

Since you tweeted this question two days ago on December 16th, the COVID situation has worsened significantly around the NHL. Multiple teams are on pause through the holiday break and it feels like more could be added.

I don’t know the right answer on this topic. Part of me feels like a pause would just be kicking the can down the road. With the Omicron variant it seems like every team is going to be hit at some point – the question is how bad.

I’m hopeful that the enhanced protocols initiated by the NHL and NHLPA today – Saturday, December 18 – will help slow the spread of COVID and get the situation under control. I think the revisions are about two weeks too late, but that’s water under the bridge at this point.

Cautiously, I think the NHL should keep playing. I’m not quite sure what my threshold is for a shutdown. But we’re not far from it.

I was at the St. Louis Blues vs. Dallas Stars last night and I can say this: Charlie Lindgren is playing with major swag. They’re calling him Chucky Sideburns around St. Louis and he’s 5-0-0 in his first five games wearing the Blue Note. It looks like he’s having so much fun.

Lindgren was a big time prospect coming out of St. Cloud State University and the Montreal Canadiens had high hopes for him. He was good in flashes at the NHL level but struggled behind some poor teams in Laval – the Canadiens’ AHL affiliate.

Charlie Lindgren with the Laval Rocket and myself with the Syracuse Crunch

I still have questions about Lindgren’s technical game. He uses VH too often for my liking, and he has a tendency to get spread using paddle-down at inopportune times. He’s not a great puckhandler.

But he is playing with such confidence right now. He looks free. He’s smiling. And he believes not only in himself, but the team in front of him. A big part of that has to do with his start in the AHL this season – he went 8-1-1 for the Springfield Thunderbirds. He’s earned the right to be called up over Blues prospect Joel Hofer.

With Jordan Binnington back in the lineup, I’m not sure what Lindgren’s workload will be in the future. But he’s been fantastic.

Just about everything! But interestingly, I wonder which Belfour version of the butterfly you speak of. Because The Eagle began his career low and wide. As he got older – and had to compensate for back injuries – he narrowed up his stance and played more upright.

My professional career began in 2005. Back then, goalies were just starting to understand what it meant to recover with the proper leg. I taught myself how by watching Jose Theodore while I was at St. Lawrence University playing college hockey. We didn’t have a goalie coach so it was on me to improve.

By 2007, the VH (vertical-horizontal) post-integration technique was all the rage. I learned it from Francois Allaire while in the Anaheim Ducks organization playing for their AHL affiliate Portland Pirates.

The next great revolution was the introduction of RVH (reverse vertical-horizontal) which happened around 2012. Jonathan Quick popularized the technique in North America, but the Swedes had been toying with it for a few years.

I had the great fortune of learning it from Ian Clark while in the Columbus Blue Jackets organization. Watching Sergei Bobrovsky swivel on his posts and use them as bumpers changed my game dramatically.

There were plenty of other details over the years that you likely wouldn’t have noticed. Glove positioning and width to name a few. I tried to play a little more upright as I got older, but habits are hard to break.

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