Goalie whisperer’s loud presence

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This article was published 03/11/2017 (2864 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

These days, he oozes confidence. He has a new-found sense of calm.

Last season, you probably wouldn’t have described Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck that way. But early in 2017-18, his reputation is changing.

While the sample size is still small (nine games so far), the way Hellebuyck tends Winnipeg’s net has changed, and so with it are the fortunes of a franchise. It’s that simple.

Going into tonight’s game against the visiting Montreal Canadiens, the 24-year-old from Commerce, Mich., is 7-0-1 and holds a gaudy 1.92 goals-against average and .938 save percentage.

Much of the credit for this transformation is being directed at Adam Francilia, a Kelowna, B.C.-based holistic health, wellness and nutritional expert who helped to reshape Hellebuyck’s game last summer.

Call him the goalie whisperer, fitness guru to goaltenders… whatever.

“I’ve been around long enough to know that there are ebbs and flows, on a team and in a season,” Francilia said via telephone Friday afternoon. “Things can change. I see more of a big-picture, long-term kind of thing. We created a change (with Hellebuyck). We’re reinforcing it and we’ve created a platform now. If a player doesn’t feel like he’s standing on a foundation with principles and rules, it’s really difficult, whether they’re a goalie or a skater, to go back and figure out, ‘Why did I have a bad game.’”

How Francilia came into the picture is pretty simple. When Hellebuyck changed agents earlier this year, switching to Ray Petkau, of the Steinbach-based Alpha Hockey Inc., he got to know Alpha’s director of player development, Francilia, who serves as an in-house adviser to the company’s clients on all all things related to nutrition and fitness.

And so, after Hellebuyck returned from a stint with Team USA at the hockey worlds, he began working on some online video review with Francilia. The work expanded to face-to-face dryland and on-ice sessions when Hellebuyck travelled to Kelowna in the summer.

“Our first thing was to restructure, retool his posture (and) his frame,” the 45-year-old Francilia said. “He’s a big guy, he’s big, he’s lanky. He’s got some good long limbs on him. He definitely wasn’t using his frame to his advantage last year. In order to do that… we created awareness from the midsection, the core, out to the extremities and understand how things like pelvic tilt (works) and how he was angling his lumbar spine and some of those little intricacies — those muscles just weren’t stimulated, they weren’t strengthened and they weren’t co-ordinated properly. And everything off of that was being affected.”

In three short months, Hellebuyck was able to build the all-star form he has shown thus far.

“Some of the things that were getting him into trouble, due to faulty structure and faulty biomechanics because we were only able to, in whatever posture we’re in, we’re only able to move effectively or ineffectively off the posture we’re in currently,” Francilia said, noting biomechanics is a fancy term for how the body moves. “For Connor, there were a few hiccups and I don’t want to get too specific, but there were some hiccups with how he was structured in his play last year.

“I’ve gotta say, we pulled it off because of how willing Connor was to trust me and do everything he could to affect that change.”

Francilia, whose goalie clients also include NHLers Devan Dubnyk, Eddie Lack, James Reimer, Laurent Brossoit and Winnipeg prospect Eric Comrie, said it was important to have the Jets onboard with the changes. In fact, the club’s goaltending coach, Wade Flaherty, immersed himself in the process. He went to Kelowna and participated in Francilia’s Net360 elite goaltending camp.

“One of the really important aspects of Connor being comfortable and applying it, is the way Wade Flaherty’s been,” Francilia said. “He’s been such a great resource for me and also a guy, when he came out to Kelowna, he wanted to know what we were doing. He was really excited about it and embraced it. To have a guy like that who’s so close to the goalies — for him to really, really be on the same page — that allowed Connor to get further with it. Wade’s been fantastic.

“The team and Wade and the strength and conditioning guys on the Jets, they’ve been really, really understanding… about the changes that needed to be made. It’s a really great relationship that’s working.”

Francilia works with his clients on and off the ice. “It’s like we’re in the gym, but on the ice. I’m not a goalie coach like Wade is.”

Hellebuyck raved about Francilia’s teaching methods.

“I went out there a couple of times and saw what he’s all about, worked out with him and changed my body (position),” Hellebuyck said during training camp.

“His biomechanics are what’s coming into the game. It’s next-level stuff. Everything he teaches me and talks to me about, it makes sense. I’ve been trying to apply it all summer long and I really like what it’s done for my game.

“When I jumped on with him, I saw tremendous improvements come into my game. That’s what I was looking for, taking my game to the next level and proving not only that I belong, but that I can be a high-end skill in this league. With Adam’s help, I’m on my way to doing that.”

The early returns have been very encouraging for the Jets.

Hellebuyck, a 6-4, 207-pounder, looks more composed and imposing than ever. But why?

“Do you notice that he’s much more economical in his movements, yet he looks faster?” Francilia said. “Faster glove, for sure, because of the postural changes that we made. His arms are completely different than last year because he’s not using his arms (for balance).

“What was happening last year was there were times, with his arms, Connor was using them for balance and as soon as he moved on his arms, his balance went away. And so the arm action wasn’t free, wasn’t relaxed and being used for what it should.”

Francilia’s work wasn’t done when Hellebuyck returned to Winnipeg for training camp. He watches games and reviews video of all of his clients during the season and provides a daily workout regime to follow. He also visits each client three times a season — he spent 24 days in October visiting his pupils, including four days in the ’Peg.

When he arrives, Francilia’s first task is to make a three-hour shopping trip to a grocery store where he stocks up on organic ingredients for a marathon two-day session in the kitchen.

“I cooked at least two to three months of food for each of those guys,” said Francilia, who partners on some of these trips with his wife Cathy Francilia, a heath and nutritional expert herself. “They all have humungous deep freezes.”

As for daily updates, Francilia likes to keep current with his goaltending clients, fine-tuning their approach and heading off any issues before they become major problems.

Did he notice any flaws in Hellebuyck’s performance during Winnipeg’s 5-2 win over the Dallas Stars on Thursday night?

“I did see a couple of things that concern me and we’ll talk about that today or whenever that’s convenient,” Francilia said.

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14