Glover making her case in the crease

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This article was published 17/12/2024 (390 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

That Grace Glover is still realizing her potential is a testament to the goaltender she could become.

The Boissevain product has been outstanding in her second year with the University of Alberta Pandas, and yet, she knows there’s plenty of room for growth.

A 0.84 goals against average leads the Canada West conference while her .954 save percentage is good for fourth-best. Her efforts, which include three shutouts, have yielded a 5-2 record for the Pandas — who are 12-4-0 overall at the Christmas break — when she’s in the crease.

“I’m pretty happy with where I am so far. I mean, there’s always room for improvement but I think this year I was excited to get, hopefully, a few more games and I think that’s kind of came true,” Glover said.

At 5-5, Glover is undersized in net but makes up for it with exceptional smarts and athleticism.

She arrived at U of A last fall with one of the most impressive resumes for a goaltender in the Manitoba Female U18 AAA Hockey League, where she collected a playoff MVP award and league championship with the Westman Wildcats in 2022, and a regular-season league MVP in 2023.

With fellow Manitoban Halle Oswald, one of the conference’s best goaltenders, expected to move on after the 2023-24 season, Glover thought she might’ve had a chance to compete for the starting job with the Pandas immediately.

Plans changed when Oswald opted to exercise her final year of eligibility to chase a Canada West championship. The news was perhaps disappointing at first to the hungry young competitor, but she soon realized it was the best case for her future.

“It was definitely kind of like, ‘Oh, I wonder what this is gonna look like,’ at the beginning, but then once I got here and got settled and it was, it was really nice to have her to follow around for a year, learn about everything she does,” said Glover, who did not allow a goal in three starts last year.

“We actually became really good friends, and I think just having the opportunity to play with her and practice with her was really special because she’s such an amazing goalie. Just watching her work ethic and practices and games and everything, I think it was a really good opportunity for me.”

This year, nothing has been handed to her.

Glover has found herself in a rotation with Mackenzie Dojahn and Misty Rey, both of whom hold the advantage of being third-year players with more experience.

The Manitoban has held her own and made the most of her opportunities and should she continue on this path, which will give head coach Howie Draper plenty to think about when the playoffs roll around.

“We’ve got three goalies that we’re quite confident can do the job, and at the outset, we felt that they’re all doing great, but one had yet to step up and show us that they might be the one that might deserve a little bit more net time,” Draper said of his plan.

No one has done enough to earn the crease full-time yet, but no one has played themselves out of the running. So far, it has worked well for the collective, but it can be difficult for a goaltender when they don’t know exactly when their next opportunity will come.

Who best handles that uncertainty going forward, Draper said, will determine who he wants to backstop his program as the games get more important.

“It’s definitely not the easiest thing,” Glover conceded. “It’s a lot of pressure, having to always rotate with the three, but it’s also good because I think when we’re so close and having a goalie trio that the team can rely on to be able to rotate, I think that’s something really special to be part of.”

In seven contests, Rey has allowed 1.85 goals on average and recorded a .898 save percentage and one shutout, good for a 4-3 record. Meanwhile, Dojahn, who is in her first year with the Pandas after transferring from the Lakeland Rustlers of the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC), has missed time due to injury but is 3-0 with two shutouts.

“I think it’s really just taking it day to day, practice to practice, game to game, shot to shot even, if you want to break it down that much. I think that focusing on the basics and just the day-to-day things gets you away from focusing on the big picture and thinking, ‘What’s going to happen a month down the road? Will I still be playing? Who’s going to be playing? Are we still going to be rotating?’ Those big things.

“So, I think just focusing on the now, and I think that’s been kind of my main approach. And then just focusing on myself and what I can do to get better, and what I can do to earn that spot, rather than focusing on what the other goalies are doing that I can’t do.”

Mature words from the 19-year-old, who has impressed her coaches and teammates with her work ethic in a short time. On the ice, Glover has worked on her depth in the crease to help make up for her smaller stature and her puck handling. Off the ice, her presence is growing in the locker room.

“She’s always really impressed us in terms of her knowledge and her athleticism, she understands the game at a very high level. So much so that she contributes when we’re asking questions or we’re challenging our shooters to be better, she takes the initiative to help give them thoughts and ideas as to how they can be more effective in scoring, which is interesting. You wouldn’t expect that from a goalie,” he said.

“But she’s also just a remarkable young person in terms of her personality and the values that she holds, and she brings a lot to our dressing room. She’s very mature, I think, for her young age. And she’s emerging into a leader for us. I see that continuing to grow and her coming to fruition relative to that potential over a very short period of time here in the future.”

The Pandas will return for the home stretch as the No. 2 team in Canada West, only trailing the UBC Thunderbirds. With 12 contests remaining in the schedule, Glover might only have a few opportunities to make her final case for the playoffs, one of which could come on the final weekend of the regular season against the Manitoba Bisons (Feb. 7-8).

“I can tell you that we feel very good about where Grace is at right now, like I think she’s moving in the (right) direction,” Draper said. “She continues to move in that direction for us, and if she continues, I’m anticipating that good things will happen for her.”

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca

X: @jfreysam