Scotty Bowman is the first to admit he’s not a goaltending expert.
But after winning a record nine Stanley Cups as a head coach — including five with the Canadiens — Bowman knows good goaltending when he sees it and likes what he saw last season from Jacob Fowler, who is primed to become Montreal’s goalie of the future.
The 90-year-old Bowman still watches a lot of hockey on TV from his winter home in Florida and really enjoys watching U.S. college games. As a result, he saw quite a bit of Fowler last season when the 19-year-old posted a 32-6-1 record as a freshman at Boston College, along with a 2.14 goals-against average and a .926 save percentage.
The Canadiens selected Fowler in the third round (69th overall) of the 2023 NHL Draft.
“He’s an exceptional college goalie,” Bowman said during a phone interview Wednesday afternoon from his summer home in Buffalo. “I saw him play a lot on TV. What I like about him is he tracks the puck.
“I don’t know a lot about goaltending and never had to do any goaltending coaching, but it’s impressive when you see a goalie and he’s not flopping all over the place but is moving wherever the puck is going,” Bowman added “(Ken) Dryden was like that, (Carey) Price was like that. That’s why they were good goalies. Even going back to (Glenn) Hall.”
While the style of goaltending has changed dramatically over the years, Bowman said the ability to track the puck remains a key and that it is much harder to do in today’s NHL than it was when Hall of Famers Dryden and Hall were playing.
“The toughest part now for goalies tracking the puck is the people in front of them,” Bowman said. “The teams don’t have the wingers stay out at the point now (in the defensive zone). You’re the goalie in front of your own net and now you have the five skaters on your team who are very close to you and then you have a couple more from the other team. So you have a lot of people in front of the net that you didn’t have in my day. In my day the players were spread out.
“I notice it myself,” added Bowman, who remains a regular in the press box for Tampa Bay Lightning games at Amalie Arena. “My eyesight is OK, but I sit in the press box in Tampa and, honestly, tracking the puck is not easy for me because there’s people around it all the time. Very seldom do you see one person with the puck starting to manoeuvre out of his own end. There’s always a pack of guys near the puck and the puck isn’t very big. It’s a different game than it was 25 years ago. They still spread out occasionally, but most times there’s a pack of players where the puck is and they’re all trying to get it. There’s always guys around the puck a lot.”
Fowler is 6-foot-2 and 212 pounds, which Bowman noted is a big plus.
“The goalie has to be able to have the sense of where is the puck and you don’t want to be diving all over the place,” Bowman said. “The goalies now are all good size and no matter how skilled you are the puck has to hit you occasionally. So that means you have to be in position. Position goalies are important and it’s not an easy position.”