March 17, 2005

By Elliot Olshansky

CollegeSports.com

 

Scoring goals isn't going to come easily for the Colgate Raiders at this weekend's ECAC Hockey League Championships in Albany, N.Y.

In Friday's semifinal, Don Vaughan's squad is going to have to try to put the puck past Harvard's Dov Grumet-Morris, who leads the nation in save percentage, and was recently named the winner of the 2005 Walter Brown Award as the best American-born college hockey player in New England. On Saturday, the Raiders will be firing at either Cornell sophomore and Hobey Baker Award candidate David McKee - who recently broke Ken Dryden's school record by posting his 14th career shutout, or Vermont freshman Joe Fallon, rated highest among all draft-eligible college goaltenders by the NHL's Central Scouting Bureau.

One way or another, it's going to take a serious effort to light the lamp at the Pepsi Arena, but the Raiders aren't concerned. After all, throughout the latter half of the season, they've had two of the best practice goalies a college hockey team could ask for.

Not only do the Raiders get to practice on starting netminder Steve Silverthorn - owner of the school's single-season record for goals-against average (1.82 during the Raiders' 2003-04 Cleary Cup run) - but throughout 2005, the Raiders have also been practicing with Philadelphia Flyers goalkeeper Robert Esche, who joined the Raiders' coaching staff as a volunteer assistant during the NHL lockout.

 

"Obviously, it's pretty amazing," Silverthorn said of Esche's work with the team after a February 11 shutout of Yale. "Having anybody of that caliber come in and help you, it's unreal. He's a top echelon NHL goalie. He comes in here and he can teach you anything. He's taught me so much about little aspects of the game, he's been so helpful."

 

It's not just Silverthorn, of course, since firing pucks at an NHL goalie is great preparation for the top-level college netminders the Raiders see in the ECACHL.

 

"They get to shoot on an NHL goalie," Silverthorn said of his teammates. "That's going to help anybody out. He knows so much about the game, not just goaltending, but the whole game, so he helps everybody."

 

According to Silverthorn, part of Esche's effectiveness in helping the team has come from his attitude. "He's so down to earth," Silverthorn said. "He's just a nice guy. You get a guy coming in from the NHL, you think maybe he's going to be different than everyone else. He's just like us."

Esche, for his part, doesn't see the Raiders as being all that different from his fellow NHLers. "These kids I think the one thing a lot of them don't realize is how close they are," Esche said in a phone interview earlier this week. "They're right there, there's going to be a lot of things that are going to deter them from making it [in the pros], but some of these kids, they fire the puck just as hard as an NHL guy. I don't think they realize how close a lot of them are."

 

And the Raiders' keeper? "This kid is a very quality goalie," Esche said of Silverthorn. "He's got an unbelievable amount of upside, and the thing that I like the most about him is his personality: the way that he carries himself, the confidence that he puts back into his team, the work ethic. Everything about him is just terrific."

It was a family connection that brought Esche to Colgate's Starr Rink. "I've known Rob's father for a number of years," Vaughan said. "Rob's younger brother and my son played some summer hockey together.

"Rob had some opportunities to go to Europe, and he thought that might be something he wanted to do, and after the World Cup, he was sort of hampered with an injury, so he was waiting until that healed. Then, it was too far into the season, so he was really looking for something to do, and his dad mentioned it to me, and that's how we kind of made contact."

The Toronto Maple Leafs' Joe Nieuwendyk, who had spent time earlier in the season working with his alma mater, Cornell, also furthered the process along when he spoke with Esche at a charity 4-on-4 tournament for Esche's "Save of the Day" foundation.

"Joe Nieuwendyk was helping out with Cornell at the beginning of the year," Esche said, "and he mentioned it to me at my 4-on-4 event, and I thought it was a great idea. It made a lot of sense, because obviously it's a great team, and I didn't realize how close it was to me, as far as commuting back and forth with a pregnant wife."

From there, it wasn't long before Esche started showing up on the Hamilton, N.Y. campus, less than 30 miles from his home in Whitesboro, NY.

"I think the first couple of days, they were pretty in awe of him," Vaughan said, "and impressed with what he can do, but he's a really unassuming guy. He really understands the game, but I was really impressed about was how grateful he seemed to be around a team again and to be able to get out on the ice on a regular basis and work with the guys. That set the tone in the locker room; he came in like he was just one of the guys."

According to Esche, the Raiders certainly didn't waste much time in treating him like just another practice goalie. Asked how long it took for a Raider to score on him, Esche said, "Actually, I think it was just the opposite. It took a while for me to save one. As I started skating with the team and getting back in shape, it took a while."

 

It certainly didn't take a while for Esche to help the Raiders. "He's a great coach," Vaughan said. "He's got a great mind of the game. I think he's learned a lot from [Flyers head coach and Princeton volunteer assistant] Ken Hitchcock, and I've been picking his brain every chance I get to see what I can pick up. He's got a future in the game as a coach as he wants to be one."

Esche, for his part, would consider coaching as a second career once he hangs up his pads, but only in a very specific situation.

"I'd only want to coach at two levels," Esche said. "One would be the extremely young kids, mites, because I think that parents need to be taught as they come into the hockey world, just as much as the kids do. I think that youth hockey has taken a turn down a devastating road. I'd like to coach at the young level, coach the parents, coach the kids, kind of bring them all up through my eyes and what I've seen, or I'd like to coach at an elite level."

 

"Elite level" includes Division I. "That team is run like a professional team," Esche said of the Raiders. "That coaching staff really knows what they're doing. These guys really are on their game."

 

In the meantime, though, Esche has had his own influence on the Raiders, especially when it comes to the effort he puts in. "I think it's the work ethic that guys have been impressed with," Vaughan said. "Here's a guy that's an NHL All-Star, world caliber goaltender. He works as hard as anyone on our team, maybe harder, and I think that just having him around and seeing that work ethic from an NHL all-star has been very impressive, and I think some of the guys have really noticed."

 

For his part, Esche was impressed by the acceptance he received. "They didn't have to take me in and treat me like one of the guys," Esche said. "We've had a great time together. It's been a lot of fun. They've really embraced me as one of their own, and that's not an easy thing to do, especially when you're coming in after Christmas. Some of them could be looking at it like, `This guy, he's just using us,' or `this guy's just here for himself.' Obviously, that was never the case, but these kids realized that, and it was pretty neat. The whole experience has been eye-opening for me."

 

Now, having benefited from Esche's assistance, it's time for the Raiders to use what they've learned to open a few eyes in their own right, and try to bring home an ECACHL title.