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.
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