Friday, October 19, 2018 
 
 FACEOFF 2018
5B

Hayden Lavigne: No longer a mystery

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Written by Tien Le

Photo Credits: Top - Katelyn Mulcahy / Bottom - Alec Cohen

through 16 games, Lavigne’s per-
formance 
proved 
uninspiring, 

especially with his competition 
including the current Mike Rich-
ter Award winner and Notre Dame 
goalie, Cale Morris, who posted a 
.937 through 28 games.

“When I was in the USHL, I got 

cut from Tri-City and then Water-
loo, which was a big low in my 
career and probably the lowest 
I’ve ever been,” Lavigne said. “And 
then going into Bloomington, I had 
a great goalie coach that I got to 
work with there who really kinda 
turned my game around and helped 
me realize the mental aspect of 
things.”

If you didn’t know what type of 

goalie Lavigne was, he was always 
on the athletic side of the puck. His 
struggles were all mental.

“I would collapse on myself and 

get frustrated with myself,” Lavi-
gne said. “And so (the Bloomington 
Thunder goalie coach) helped me 
work through that, and that was 
a big turning point, but that was a 
year and a half long span of working 
with him and working through that 
stuff — that was big for me.”

The situation Lavigne saw in 

Bloomington wasn’t that far from 
what he saw in Michigan last year. 
After the first month, where he sat 
behind Logan Halladay, he dedi-
cated his time to developing. No 
games, just practice. It gave him 
time to fully accept that the start-
ing job wasn’t just going to fall 
to him, that he had to work hard 
against the competition out there 
to win it.

Even after he got his starts, he 

saw his time split in rotations. But 
that prepared him.

“Then finally got my starts, we 

rotated for almost a full year, we 
rotated,” Lavigne said. “That kinda 
really just set me up for the com-
petition that’s ahead and going in 
— coming in here, freshman year, 
there was four of us. I was com-
peting with not only just one other 
goalie, now I was competing with 
three others. Then last year, Jack 
LaFontaine and I were competing 
neck and neck for the first half of 

the season. This year, it’s (Strauss 
Mann) and (Jack Leavy) again.

Through every start, Lavigne 

gained pieces of him that would 
define how he played. Defining 
moments of his career taught him 
lessons as a player bit by bit, allow-
ing him to be the undisputed starter 
and late-season star the Wolverines 
needed from him last season.

“Even just my first game at Yost, 

playing and winning, just knowing 
that right away that I could com-
pete at this level was something 
that definitely gave me the confi-
dence through the last two years 
and 
moving 
forward,” 
Lavigne 

said. “Those are probably the big-
gest things, and like I said, it’s little 
things along the way. Going to the 
Frozen Four is a big turning point, 
shows not only me, but the whole 
team, what we can do.”

And it was by getting faster, bet-

ter and more consistent that Lavi-
gne found himself winning the 
starting job at Michigan.

As a freshman, he averaged a ser-

viceable .912 save percentage, with 
a 6-6-1 split through 13 games. It 
was as a sophomore, however, that 
he proved himself worthy of the 
starting job.

After a weak stretch in the first 

half of the year, where neither him 
or former Michigan goaltender 
Jack LaFontaine could separate 
one another, Lavigne was given the 
starting job after LaFontaine let six 
goals in against Bowling Green on 
Jan. 1st. And when given the oppor-
tunity this time around, he ran 
away with it.

On Feb. 2, Lavigne held his own 

against a ranked Wisconsin team, 
allowing only three goals in on 40 
shots. His goaltending made all the 
difference in a one-goal win, end-
ing 4-3 in favor of Michigan.

Against Penn State, Minnesota 

and Notre Dame, Lavigne averaged 
a .947 save percentage during the 
crucial stretch, cementing his place 
in the crease.

So while Lavigne might have 

been a mystery before, he’s made 
sure everyone knows just who is 
behind the mask.

Page Layout by Kate Glad ; Designed by Roseanne Chao

