Brayden Point is not only speedy on ice.
He’s a quick study, too.
That’s what Danielle Goyette, a legendary scorer for the Canadian women’s national team and now highly-regarded skills and skating coach, remembers about a handful of summer sessions with Point after his rookie season with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“You say something to him, and he adjusts right away,” Goyette recalled. “I think that’s why he is so good. He can adjust. He can change things right away. When you explain to him why and what’s going to happen, he’s going to adapt right away. Some people take more time to do things, but he has this ability to adjust really easily.”
The Calgary-based Goyette — originally from Quebec, she was inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2017 — certainly isn’t taking credit for Point’s ascent to stardom, but she is proud to have played a small role in his emergence as one of the NHL’s top talents.
Point buried an early man-advantage marker in Monday’s Game 2 of the Stanley Cup final, ripping a one-timer to become just the second dude to hit double-digits in goals during this unprecedented summer restart. Despite missing a pair of games due to injury, the 24-year-old centre is currently sitting second in the playoff scoring race with 26 points, trailing only linemate Nikita Kucherov.
More importantly, the Lightning scratched out a 3-2 victory to pull even in their best-of-seven championship showdown with the Dallas Stars. Game 3 goes Wednesday (6 p.m. MT, Sportsnet) inside the bubble in Edmonton.
Goyette’s work with Point spanned only a couple of weeks but left a lasting impression.
She was, at that time, putting Lightning defenceman Braydon Coburn through regular paces. Point joined his teammate for some of those sweats, with Goyette focusing her coaching on how he could improve his footwork.
“For me, you can see the speed he has, but every time he was turning, he was stopping. He was slowing down to turn,” said Goyette, the bench boss for the University of Calgary Dinos women’s team — she was the Canada West coach-of-the-year award winner for 2019-20 — and also an instructor for SDR Academy. “We worked a lot on using your body and let your body do the work. It doesn’t matter the speed you’re going — if you lean the right direction, it’s going to turn you and it’s going to make sure that you don’t lose your speed.
“And in the corners, the same thing — how to stay in the middle of your blade and how to make sure that when you turn, you don’t put your weight on your heel because it’s going to slow you down.
“For him, that’s what I see a lot now. He’s not that good just because I worked with him for two weeks, but it’s fun to see.”
Point, despite that unspecified injury, has barely slowed down during the 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs.
He’s scored a pair of sudden-death goals, including the top-shelf snipe that finally ended a quintuple-overtime marathon against the Columbus Blue Jackets in the opening round. Monday’s power-play snipe sparked a run of three tallies in a span of 3:53 … and it turns out his squad needed all of ’em to stave off the Stars and tie up the series.
If you’ve been tuned in to the 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs, you’ve heard broadcasters and analysts rave constantly about Point’s speed and agility.
It’s no secret that he has logged a lot of hours with Toronto-based Barb Underhill, a former figure skater who has served as a consultant for the Bolts and other NHL organizations, to improve his edge-work and refine his stride.
Goyette, during that two-week stretch, offered her two cents.
And Point, himself, deserves a heap of the credit.
The 54-year-old Goyette, whose hardware collection includes a pair of Olympic gold medals and eight more from the world championships, was adamant about that.
“What I love about him and watching him is his will to be one of the best players,” said Goyette, who ranks third on the all-time scoring list for the women’s national team, with 114 goals and 219 points in international action, and was an assistant coach for a golden group at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. “Sometimes, they dream to be in the NHL and once they are there, it’s like, ‘OK, I made it. I can stay here.’ For him, his will to want to be one of the best, that’s what makes me like watching him. His work ethic is so good, and that is fun to watch.”
Goyette continues to tutor several NHL draft picks as they try to reach primetime. Some prospects have made trips from Saskatchewan for skating sessions.
Point remains a star pupil, even if she only coached him for that brief spell.
“He was so much fun to work with,” Goyette said. “Even when I watch him still, I’m like, ‘OK, I need to work on that with other guys or other kids.’ ”
ICE CHIPS : The Calgary Flames announced that right-winger Eetu Tuulola has been assigned to Vasterviks IK in Sweden’s second pro division. The 22-year-old registered 10 goals and 23 points in 50 outings with the American Hockey League’s Stockton Heat this past season and will return to North America whenever training camps open for the 2020-21 campaign.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
