The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/418536
Nagelvoort even more strongly endorsed the advantages of having Racine as his partner. "Having a guy like Steve is an ad‑ vantage in that we push each other every single day," Nagelvoort said, "Obviously, there's the fact that you're not going to play every night. If you slip up, someone's going to take your job. That's the kind of re‑ lationship and situation that every‑ body needs in order to push yourself even more to get better. "Everyone wants to play every game. If you don't, I think you're in the wrong sport. I don't see any negative to having someone there pushing you every day. It's too easy to be content with a practice or a game in which you can say 'I played pretty well, but we lost.' That's just never okay. It helps to have two guys that are just itching for your job so that you continue to be pushed to up your own game." Michigan goaltending coach Josh Blackburn, himself a part of the long tradition of single‑goalie systems that Berenson used from 1990‑2005, thinks the challenge facing Nagel‑ voort and Racine might just be easier if one or the other was able to win the job outright. "It's easier mentally when you know you're going to play rather than if you let in a bad goal and then you're thinking, 'Am I not playing tomorrow?'" Blackburn offered. "It's a whole other beast. A lot of teams do it well, but I personally think it's much harder to play in a two‑goalie system as opposed to a one‑goalie system where it's easier to get into a groove." Blackburn's assessment of his two goaltenders' futures was positive, but realistic. "Nagelvoort's strength is his size and physical ability," Blackburn said. "But, he's young and I think that we simply need more consis‑ tency from him. Racine is one of the fastest goalies I've ever seen, but again he needs more consistency and better concentration for 60 min‑ utes. Both of them are physically capable of playing the way we need them to. "They're in a tough situation be‑ cause our team is so young that we're going to make mistakes. We're going to give up bad chances. It's tough for them because we're not giving up tons of shots necessarily, but we have given up a breakaway or two every game or several odd‑man rushes. We're not making it easy on them ei‑ ther. I do think they're getting better, and our ultimate goal is to get two consistent goalies." One of the stated goals of Berenson and his coaching staff heading into the 2014‑15 season was to ease the load on the goaltending tandem by playing tighter team defense. Both Racine and Nagelvoort realize that while the ultimate responsibil‑ ity is on their shoulders to keep the puck out of the net, they're reliant on their teammates to make that an easier task. "Defense doesn't come down to only one guy," Racine pointed out. "It's everyone as a whole, commu‑ nicating well and being in the right position. It's working hard, that's