MLive’s Ansar Khan posted a morning column which discusses Red Wings goaltender Alex Lyon’s attempts to earn the starting job in Detroit’s three-goalie crease:
Ville Husso and Cam Talbot have considerably more NHL experience than Lyon, but coach Derek Lalonde said during training camp that the goaltending job is wide open. Lyon, who appeared in a career-high 44 games and went 21-18-5, can grab it.
“My whole career I had to kind of work for every inch that I’ve gotten,” Lyon said. “So, my approach remains the same. Coming off last year, feel a bit more comfortable playing in the NHL and just trying to build on that confidence and I think that everybody in the locker room feels like we’re on a mission.”
Talbot, signed to a two-year deal in the offseason, was tested in the third period, making nine saves. Christian Fischer and Vladimir Tarasenko (power play) scored in the second period as the Red Wings moved to 2-0 and have allowed only two goals thus far.
“Our approach all along was a clean slate for the goaltending and we’re sticking to that,” Lalonde said. “And so far, I think all four goalies that have played have shown some positives. The positive with so many exhibition games is eight (games) is a lot of goalie looks.”
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Lyon said the disappointing end to the season – missing the playoffs on a tiebreaker – left a bad taste.
“I’m sure everybody would probably say that but just tried to use it as fuel for the fire and felt like I put in a lot of work this summer and just excited and optimistic to get going,” he said.
Update: The Hockey News’s Connor Eargood wrote about Lyon as well:
After a pit stop at the IIHF Men’s World Championship ended with a hand injury, Lyon set out to get ready for the season. He focused on recovery to start, getting his body right after such a grueling workload.
“Typically in my career, it’s been like one game a week, or one or two maybe on a weekend,” Lyon explained. “And so this summer, I just tried to be able to bounce back quicker mentally and physically. And I think that that’s something that’s really going to help me.”
As much as physical abilities matter, Lyon leaned heavily into the mental preparation, too. He doesn’t want to get caught up in the streaks, wins or losses, that can derail a goaltender’s consistency. And that mental training could be useful in a season that projects to be similar to the previous one.
“We’re going to have rough patches this year. We’re going to have probably high patches, high times this year,” Lyon said. “And so I think that it’s important for us this year to just take it (that) we have to lay it on the line 82 times and let the chips fall where they may. And that’s what’s going to yield the best results.”
Its going to be nice early on to have Goalie competitions and its nice to have decent talent competing. Its always a nice problem to have. And as always, injuries can happen, and depth is huge… Wings have depth at that position, something I really like.