Thursday, April 29, 1999

Little goalie has big responsibility
The puck stops here

Richmond 5-foot-6 rookie Maxime Gingras set an ECHL record with seven shutouts this season.

By KATRINA WAUGH
THE ROANOKE TIMES

   The first thing you notice about Maxime Gingras is his height -- he doesn't have much.

    It's a mistake, though, not to look further. Just ask Dayton Bombers coach Greg Ireland.

    The Bombers got Gingras this fall when he was sent down from the IHL Michigan K-Wings' camp. Ireland already had a couple goaltenders he liked, and when the 5-foot-6 Gingras came to camp, Ireland placed the 20-year-old rookie on waivers.

    "I guess the hockey gods were smiling on us," Richmond coach Mark Kaufman says now.

    While Ireland was discarding Gingras, Kaufman was looking for another goaltender to pair with Terry Friesen, the rookie he got from the Renegades' NHL affiliate, the San Jose Sharks. Kaufman called around to check on Gingras' background, then snapped him up.

    The little guy is making Kaufman look like a genius.

    Gingras, the youngest goalie in the ECHL this season, set a league record for shutouts with seven. The previous record was five, set by Toledo's Dave Goverde in the 1996-97 season. Gingras posted a 30-13-3 record with a 2.26 goals-against average and a 92.4 saves percentage in the regular season.

    "He's a good little goalie," said Express goaltender Daniel Berthiaume, who at 5-9 says he doesn't have too much room to talk about Gingras' size. "He's small but he plays big. He's very strong and he seems very focused."

    Gingras' big play earned him the dual honors of Rookie of the Year and Goaltender of the Year. Never before had a player been so honored.

    In the playoffs, Gingras has gone 5-1 with a 2.70 GAA and a 90.9 saves percentage.

    "Obviously the reason we're in the position we're in is because of the success he's had," Kaufman said. "We were fortunate to get him when we did."

    That doesn't mean Ireland was stricken with temporary insanity. When it comes to playing hockey, even in the crease, size matters. The goal itself is 4 feet tall and 6 feet wide, and a goalie has to find a way to cover all of it.

    "A small goalie who doesn't play his angles well and goes down a lot gets in trouble," said Express coach Scott Gordon, who is a former goaltender. "Gingras is able to stay on his feet and he plays his angles exceptionally well, so he's never out of position."

    Gordon compared Gingras to Chesapeake's Kirk Daubenspeck, a 6-foot goalie who allowed Roanoke just five goals in four games in last week's second-round playoff series.

    "Daubenspeck is not even close to Gingras on his mechanics, but if he plays his angles or not he still has everything covered," Gordon said. "If Maxime is off on his angles, 6 inches on one side means an even bigger hole on the other side.

    "If Daubenspeck played like Gingras, getting more comfortable with his angles and taking advantage of his size, he could play in the NHL. He might still play in the NHL. He has a lot more potential [than Gingras] because he can get away with mistakes."

    That doesn't mean Gingras can't make it to the NHL. Berthiaume played for parts of eight seasons in the NHL. Gordon, who at 5-10 counts himself as a small goalie, played 23 games for the Quebec Nordiques and 5-5 Darren Pang, now a broadcaster, played 81 games for the Chicago Blackhawks.

    In perhaps a touch of gamesmanship, Kaufman is quick to point out that Gingras' playoff numbers don't stack up well against the rest of the league -- "He's not even in the top 10," Kaufman said.

    Berthiaume, on the other hand, has the best saves percentage in the playoffs at 96.1. Berthiaume, who has gone 6-1 with 1.29 GAA, allowed just four goals in four games against Chesapeake, combining with Daubenspeck to set a league record for fewest goals (9) allowed in an ECHL playoff series of three games or more.

    The previous record for a four-game series was 17, set by Charlotte and Tallahassee in 1996. The only series to have fewer goals scored was the two-game play-in series between Baton Rouge and Augusta in which eight goals were scored.

    That's the kind of goaltending that keeps Berthiaume in the crease instead of his goaltending partner Dave Gagnon, though Gordon said he's making that decision one game at a time.

    "Bert's playing as well as he has all year," Gordon said. "If this was the regular season, maybe you make a change because you don't want to ruin the other guy, but the playoffs are basically a short season. If one picks his game up a notch, then that's your justification for playing him."

    Gagnon, who went 20-9-5 with a 2.57 GAA and 91.8 saves percentage in the regular season, has played in just one playoff game, a 5-0 loss to Dayton.

    For most of the regular season, Gordon alternated Berthiaume and Gagnon from game to game in an effort to keep the natural competition from turning to back-biting.

    "I tried to make them understand that this one would play this game and this one would play that game and performance didn't matter, so there's no need to feel like you have to do something that is going to make the other one's life miserable,'' Gordon said.

    "It's one thing if you have a clear No. 1. Then you play the No. 2 to maybe push the No. 1 guy. But if you have two guys who feel they are No. 1 -- and in this case they are -- they don't need that extra competition."

    Kaufman said his two goalies, Gingras and Friesen, provide friendly competition for one another.

    "Like any goaltender combination, probably the Express combination, they're good professional friends as well as personal friends," Kaufman said. "They have a special goaltenders' bond and they help each other and push each other."

    Kaufman is not averse to using Friesen, who has had an up and down season, to send a jolt into Gingras and the rest of the Renegades.

    In the first game of Richmond's second-round series against Toledo, the Renegades trailed 3-2 going into the final period. Kaufman pulled Gingras for Friesen and the Renegades responded. Not only did Richmond score two goals in that third period, they played such tight defense that Friesen faced only three shots and stopped all three.

    Kaufman praised Friesen's attitude and ability to "stay with the program" despite his extensive pine time.

    Friesen was back on door duty and Gingras was back in front of the net the next two games of the Richmond sweep. That's where he'll be Friday when the seven-game Northern Conference championship series begins in Roanoke.

    The long and short of it is the Renegades future rides on Gingras.