Bernier’s first stop should be to end goalie debate: Feschuk

You can get the idea, if you listen to NHL coaches enough, that they possess scarce patience for the maddening unpredictability of most pro goalies.

It wasn’t long after John Tortorella arrived in Columbus this week that the newly installed bench boss of the winless Blue Jackets was asked to share his insight on the struggles of Sergei Bobrovsky.

“I don’t even watch goalies — I just want him to stop the puck. There’s enough to do with the other knuckleheads in there,” Tortorella explained to reporters.

And so it is with Mike Babcock, the Maple Leafs head coach. Only six games into his tenure in Toronto, Babcock has said more than once that he can’t be bothered with the daily inconvenience of hemming and hawing over the next game’s starter; that he’d rather not engage his new city in a debate on the various merits of Jonathan Bernier and James Reimer. Still, it’s quickly become obvious that, if Babcock was ever goaded into partaking in such a back and forth, he’d favour Bernier.

Witness Babcock’s approval after Wednesday’s 2-1 shootout loss in Buffalo, wherein Berner stopped 34 of 35 shots through overtime. Babcock called the performance “really strong.”

“It’s just good the guy who’s supposed to be starting all the time grabs the ball and runs with it,” he said. “It makes you a better team.”

Whether or not Bernier’s performance merits his apparent status as Toronto’s No. 1, certainly his sustained presence in the crease could hinge on overcoming a chronic weakness that’s often marred his work as a Leaf — specifically, early-game goals. Since joining the Maple Leafs in 2013-14, Bernier has allowed an NHL-high 13 goals within the first two minutes of games, this according to research by Randy Robles of the Elias Sports Bureau.

That number doesn’t include the marker Bernier surrendered on the first shot on Toronto’s net this season; that Max Pacioretty goal came a little more than three minutes into the home opener. It doesn’t include the goal in Detroit that prompted Babcock to hooked Bernier 20 seconds into the second period.

And it wasn’t impacted in Wednesday’s win, when the Sabres didn’t manage to steer a puck on the Toronto net until the game was nearly three minutes old.

Still, Bernier’s early-game bugaboo has been glaring enough to be of concern to Babcock, who said earlier this week that “it’s not a skill issue whatsoever.”

“He’s obviously tight at the start of games,” the coach said. “He’s got to get that looked after so he can be the best he’s capable of being.”

Babcock, on Thursday, had moved on to a long list of other concerns about the state of his team. Though he pointed out the bright side of recent results — the Leafs have managed at least a point in three of their past four games — he said he wasn’t happy with the way the team played in the early going in Buffalo. Never mind Bernier’s occasional woes with the first shot, Babcock said the team in general wasn’t “quite ready to go on time.” He specifically cited the abysmal performance in the faceoff circle, where centres Nazem Kadri, Marc Arcobello and Peter Holland finished the game a combined 36%.

“We’ve got to do a better job starting. Even though we scored first, I thought we could have been better in the first,” said Babcock. “You need to start on time to have success.”

What’s behind Bernier’s history of poor starts to games?

Steve McKichan, the club’s former goaltending coach, said in an interview that Bernier is the victim of a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Everybody’s made note of it. Everybody’s pointed it out. It’s in the media. And as much as players like to think they don’t look at the media, they do,” McKichan said. “So now it’s sort of becoming something he’s set up in the back of his mind, ‘Uh-oh. First shot’s going in.’ ”

Saul Miller, a sports psychologist and author of the book “Hockey Tough,” said it’s possible that the repeated instances of early goals against, even if some of them come on great shots, could get a goaltender to thinking.

“Good athletes develop instinctive reaction to things through a lot of repetition. When they start to become anxious, there’s a tendency to overthink, which can interfere with that reaction,” Miller said. “It can slow you down just a little. That’s the concern.”

Bernier has said he’s not concerned with the problem, pointing out earlier this week that he once had a season in the minors in which he let in a string of lamentable early-game goals and rebounded with a strong year.

Reimer, meanwhile, has defended his teammate, chalking up “a good chunk” of Bernier’s misfortune to “bad bounces.”

“And after he’s let in the first goal, he’s been lights out,” Reimer said. “I’d rather let in a goal in the first minute and give your team 59 minutes to come back than let in a goal in the last minute and give them 30 seconds to get it back. That’s why you play a 60-minute game.”

Babcock, for his part, doesn’t seem particularly interested in the details of the masked trade.

“We need (Bernier) to be a good goaltender,” he said this week. “When you’re trying to make a decision every day about who should start, it’s no fun for the coach.”