Yesterday, the Red Wings hired former NHL goaltender Michael Leighton as their goaltending coach. Today, the Windsor Star’s Jim Parker spoke with Leighton, who lives in the Windsor suburb of LaSalle, Ontario.
Leighton told Parker that he wished to stay “close to home” after a career spent bouncing around the NHL, AHL and European leagues, and, after a stint as the Windsor Spitfires’ goalie coach in the OHL, he asked around as to whether the Red Wings had an opening…
“I just heard they were looking for somebody and I reached out to somebody that I knew in the organization and he said send me a resume,” Leighton said.
It will now be Leighton’s job to get enough out of recently acquired John Gibson, who is a three-time NHL all-star, and Talbot, who is a two-time NHL all-star, to help Detroit end its nine-year playoff drought.
“Gibson’s a great goalie and shown he can be a top goalie and I’m excited to work with him and Talbot’s had some great years,” Leighton said.
It’s a much different assignment than his time with the Spitfires, which was a part-time role. The Detroit post is a full-time position and Leighton will hit the road with the club as well as be around on a daily basis.
“With the Spits, it was a part-time thing and I was not there all the time,” Leighton said. “I took as much as I can from that experience. I’ve had a lot of goalie coaches over years in NHL and AHL and watched how they’ve done things. I’ve taken that and seen how to be a good goalie coach. That’s having good communication with the coaches and building relationships with goalies to build trust. They have to trust I know what I’m talking about.”
While junior hockey was more about molding a developing players, at the NHL level Leighton isn’t looking to do more refining of players that have already been established with the 31-year-old Gibson and the 38-year-old Talbot each boasting 12 years of NHL experience.
“They’ve been around, they know the game and they’ve had their share of goalie coaches,” Leighton said. “But I’ll watch and tell them what I like and don’t like and build that relationships. You just try to bring out the best in both and goaltending’s my speciality and what I’ve done all my life.”
