Auld was both a starting goalie and a backup in his NHL career and reflects on how tough the transition from one to the other can be
Alex Auld understands what Kevin Lankinen is trying to navigate.
Auld believes that the mindsets are different enough between those two goalie gigs that some netminders have trouble adjusting from one to another.
The 29-year-old Lankinen seemed to be goalie insurance when the Canucks signed him to a one-year deal as a free agent during training camp this past September, coming off two seasons as Juuse Saros’ backup with the Nashville Predators.
“I think there’s an inherent selfishness that needs to come with being the undisputed starter. And that’s because it is really about you,” explained Auld. “It’s obviously about the team in the big picture, but part of that is that it’s about your preparation and what you need to be successful every night. I played with guys who are among the best all time or in that conversation at the very least and they all owned their preparation. I’m not saying they were selfish and bad people, but they were selfish in their preparation. They protected it. It was super important to them.
“When you’re the backup you have to make way for that. You have to protect that space for them, so you have to be the goalie for the team. You need to give the other players what they need. You need to be the goalie that stays on extra time at practice.
“It can be a difficult adjustment for some guys. Some guys can’t go from one to the other. Some can. And I think that’s also why it’s important if you’re an organization with a really good prospect that you limit the transition time. You don’t want him getting too comfortable as a backup for too long, I believe, because you then start to give everything to the team in that role, which takes your mind off of your process of being the starter. I think you need to develop guys differently based on where their ceiling maps out.”
The roles aren’t as pronounced as they were during Auld’s day, with teams evening out games played between their two goalies so that their No. 1 guy has more gas in the tank for the playoffs.
Distinctions between the goalie roles remain, though.
Saros led NHL stoppers in games played last season with 64. He shared the league lead in 2022-23 with 64 as well. Lankinen played 19 games and then 24, respectively, the past two seasons.
Auld got the call for 27 games in that following 2006-07 campaign as Belfour’s backup. Auld saw duty in three games down the stretch as Lundqvist’s No. 2 with the New York Rangers after they claimed him off waivers from the Dallas Stars in February 2010, and the following season he got into 16 games with the Montreal Canadiens playing behind Price.
Auld isn’t sure he “could have articulated it well when I was playing,” in regards to how different the two roles are.
“It’s something you probably don’t realize in the moment. You’re trying to play your best and do your thing,” he continued. “I do think now I probably got a couple of extra years out of my career because I was good at the backup piece.”
His last NHL games came in 2011-12 in a second tour of duty with the Ottawa Senators. He played the next season in Austria before retiring from action.
He wound up 91-88-32, with 2.80 goals against average and a .904 save percentage, for his NHL career. Auld was originally a second-round pick (No. 40 overall) of Florida in the 1999 draft, and was dealt to the Canucks in May 2001, for a 2001 second rounder and a 2002 third rounder.
Auld, wife Melanie and their two kids opted to live in Vancouver after his playing days ended. She’s a jewelry designer by trade — Melanie Auld Jewelry started up in 2013.
Alex returned to an NHL scene for the 2017-18 season, signing on as an analyst with Sportsnet 650 in their inaugural season with the Canucks play-by-play rights. He says he enjoyed the job, and it helped give him closure to his playing career.
He stuck with it until turning down covering the 2020 COVID bubble playoffs for the radio station, explaining that, “I was in a place where I didn’t want to do this in the summer. And the world was obviously in a crazy place at the time.”
Sportsnet 650 circled back to him for the start of the following season, but being away from covering a hockey team day-to-day hammered home to Auld that he wanted to spend more time with his family and working alongside Melanie on the jewelry business.
The radio job part time wasn’t something that appealed to him, either.
“I didn’t want to have to be critical or say how I was feeling if I wasn’t living it day-to-day,” he explained. “I didn’t think it was fair. I didn’t think it was fair to the team or the players to just sort of drop in and give my two cents if I wasn’t really witnessing everything that was going on.”
“It is pretty funny, actually,” she said.
They have stores in Vancouver and Toronto, as well as doing sales online. Alex focuses on operations and logistics, trying to keep “the creative area of Mel’s mind free so she can focus on product and marketing.”
“Almost every day I’m in the office working. But I’m also able to pick the kids up from school or run them to practice. So it’s a really good balance that way,” he said.
Maybe like a starting goalie and a backup?
“Maybe more like she’s the head coach and I’m more the systems,” Auld said. “There you go. I’ve got the systems, but she’s the inspiration and the motivation.”