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 Stephan next in line

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

By Kevin Wey

The Iowa Stars are accustomed to two things in net: strong goaltending, and one goaltender establishing himself as the clear-cut number one down the stretch.

In the I-Stars’ inaugural season, it was Mike Smith, who put up a .917 goals-against average and 2.58 goals-against average and who established himself as the number one in the final months of the season and played every minute of the playoffs, as Iowa pushed the eventual Western Conference champion Milwaukee Admirals to seven games. In 2006-07, it was Dan Ellis who established himself as Iowa’s top netminder and helped lead Iowa to the West Division Finals.

Becoming the number one with the Iowa Stars has boded well for those netminders. Smith became Marty Turco’s back-up in Dallas in 2006-07 and was named to the NHL All-Rookie Team at the end of the season. After starting 2007-08 with Dallas, Smith was moved at the trading deadline (Feb. 26, 2008) to the Tampa Bay Lightning, where he has become the Bolts’ starting netminder. Ellis translated his 2006-07 as Iowa’s number one into a contract with the Nashville Predators announced July 5, 2007 (after becoming an unrestricted free agent) and won the back-up spot in Nashville out of training camp and has gone on to split time with Chris Mason in his first full NHL season.

In 2007-08, that top goaltender for the Iowa Stars has been Tobias Stephan, who not only has established himself as the number one in Iowa, he’s established dominion.

As February came to a close, Stephan had made 45 starts in Iowa’s 61 games and had tended the net for 2700 minutes, second only to the Milwaukee Admirals’ Pekka Rinne in the AHL in minutes played. Equally as noteworthy was the fact that Stephan led the entire AHL in shutouts after posting his sixth of the season in a 6-0 victory over the Hamilton Bulldogs Feb. 29. Four of those six shutouts entering March came during the month of February, starting with a 3-0 shutout of the Grand Rapids Griffins Feb. 1 to begin the month and continuing with a 1-0 shutout of the Peoria Rivermen Feb. 9 and a 3-0 blanking of the Houston Aeros Feb. 17 and through to the Feb. 29 shutout.

Not only did Stephan lead the AHL in shutouts at that point, he had also established new Iowa Stars franchise records for shutouts in a single season but also career shutouts with the I-Stars, adding in his lone shutout in his first AHL season, a 3-0 shutout of the Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights Nov. 4, 2006. Stephan’s seventh career AHL shutout broke Ellis’s I-Stars mark of six during his two seasons with the club.

The 24-year-old goaltender was also on track toward improving his numbers from his rookie season, sporting a .910 save percentage to end February and a 2.56 goals-against average compared to his .900 save percentage and 2.88 goals-against average in 2006-07. However, the numbers belie the degree to which Stephan has improved.

One of the most notable improvements Stephan has shown since last season is in his puckhandling, where he now handles the puck with confidence and has even looked off forecheckers to then make a crisp, accurate pass to get the play moving the other direction. It’s something Stephan has heavily concentrated on improving.

“I think the most important thing was puckhandling, playing passes, and puck position,” Stephan said of the weaknesses he’s worked upon improving the most.

Some of those puckhandling problems were merely part of the adjustment from European hockey in Switzerland to North American hockey in the American Hockey League.

“I had problems last year because it’s a big difference from the European leagues,” Stephan said of his puckhandling. “Over here, things happen so much quicker and you have less time behind the net.”

Another area Stephan has concentrated on improving is rebound control, something he did not have to be as particular with in Switzerland.

“Rebounds were a key this year, too, because when I played in Europe I got away with it because there’s a bigger rink, there’s not as much pressure on the net,” Stephan said. “That was another thing we’ve worked on pretty hard, to control all the rebounds, pack them in, or put them in one of the sides.”

On many of the nights that Stephan has played exceptionally well, the difference has been him quickly covering any rebounds or kicking them away from the net and into the corners, where his defensemen can go and get them or at least battle to keep them in the perimeter. Of course, rebound control means nothing if the goalie isn’t tracking the puck well, which reveals itself in less first-shot saves. Thus, Stephan has also worked hard on tracking the puck, and that has started with his practice philosophy.

“Sometimes goalies practice and just because there’s so many shots, they just take a shot without even looking,” Stephan said. “So, I think it’s important to do it in every shot in practice so you look at the puck, make a save, and you follow the rebound so you know exactly where the puck is going and where it is.”

As the old adage goes, you play how you practice, and Stephan played well enough in October to become the undisputed number one early in the season, instead of later.

Veteran netminder Phil Sauve, who was signed to an AHL contract by Iowa Aug. 29, 2007, actually received the first start of the regular season on Oct. 6, but the team was blown out 7-1 by the San Antonio Rampage and Stephan relieved Sauve for the third period. Stephan gave up two goals in eight shots in that third period, but the fact he was Dallas’s only other netminder besides Turco and Smith under contract meant he was the netminder recalled to the “Big D” Oct. 9 after Smith went down to a bruised arm. A few days later, Stephan unexpectedly got his first chance at NHL action Oct. 13 against the Chicago Blackhawks on the road at the United Center after Turco was rested for stiffness in a leg.

Stephan performed admirably and was pitching a shutout until a Jonathan Toews’ desperation shot with seconds remaining deflected off Robert Lang in front and in with less than two seconds remaining in the third period, which sent the game into overtime. Chicago’s Jason Williams scored 43 seconds into overtime and dealt Stephan an overtime loss after making 38 saves on 40 shots.

Stephan had some nerves going into the game, but it appeared not to affect his performance.

“It’s been one of my goals since early on, so it was a big moment,” Stephan said of his first NHL start. “I started of kind of nervous, of course, but that’s normal.

“As the game went along, I got better. After the game, I was really disappointed, it was so close.”

Stephan was able to take some solace in the fact that he had given it his best and that his best had nearly earned Dallas a victory in a game in which they were outshot 40 to 18 by Chicago.

The Oct. 9 recall wasn’t his first recall to the NHL, though, as he was recalled Jan. 5, 2007, for a couple weeks to back-up Turco while Smith was out with a concussion, but it was his first NHL action beyond practicing with Dallas or games during the exhibition season. Once Turco and Smith both returned to health, Stephan was returned to Iowa Oct. 17.

Four months after the October recall, Stephan was recalled again Feb. 7 to serve as an emergency back-up to Smith against the Minnesota Wild that evening (after Turco was kept out with a sore neck). Only to be sent down the next day, Stephan was again recalled by Dallas Feb. 26 after Smith was traded to Tampa Bay with forwards Jussi Jokinen and Jeff Halpern for former Conn Smythe Trophy winner Brad Richards and goaltender Johan Holmqvist, who was unable to make it to St. Louis for the Stars’ game against the Blues that night. Stephan was returned on loan to Iowa again Feb. 27 after Holmqvist was able to report to the team.

With Smith traded, that Feb. 26 tandem could be Dallas’s two regular goaltenders in 2008-09, as Holmqvist is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season. It certainly means Stephan has to bear down this summer.

“I think it’s going to mean it’s important for Tobias to play well and then it’s an important off-season where he becomes an even stronger man and prepares to challenge to potentially back up in the NHL,” Iowa Stars Director of Hockey Operations Scott White said of the significance of the trading of Smith in an early March interview. “I don’t know if that’ll play out, but at least it’s not going to make the decision hard for him.”

When Stephan does make the jump to the NHL, whether it be the 2008-09 season or later, it’ll likely be as a back-up, at least in the beginning. This role won’t be entirely new for Stephan when he makes the jump, as he was back-up to Ellis in Iowa in 2006-07, but the 2006-07 season was certainly a new experience for the young Swiss netminder.

“I had problems last season to stay on top of my game, because I didn’t have rhythm,” Stephan said of serving as a back-up. “I’d never had that situation before.”

Indeed. In his four seasons with the Kloten Flyers in the Swiss Nationalliga A, the top league in Switzerland, Stephan started nearly every game and played almost every minute. The only exception was during the 2003-04 season, when a nagging hip problem became a hip injury in December and the team discovered the labrum had been damaged because the hip was improperly shaped. Stephan had surgery to repair the labrum and reshape the hip bone and was out the rest of the season. However, in 2002-03 Stephan started all 44 games for Kloten and played every minutes of every game; in 2003-04 he started 25 of 26 games before going down to injury; in 2004-05 he started 41 of 44 games and played 2573 of 2663 minutes; in 2005-06 he started 43 of 44 games and played 2665 of 2687 minutes.

While the ratio of Stephan’s starts and minutes played with Kloten may seem extreme to North American hockey fans, this situation isn’t entirely uncommon in Switzerland.

“It’s normal in the Swiss league that there’s one go-to guy, because there’s only 44 games, now it’s 50 [games],” Stephan said. “You can stay fresh for those, also, because they’re in the same time window as it is over here, but it’s just 50 games, so there’s 30 games less in the same amount of days.”

Serving as the number two to Ellis in 2006-07 was a new experience to Stephan, but he knows it was an important experience to have.

“I figure that’s something I’ve got to learn if I want to make it to a higher level,” Stephan said. “A person in the NHL, they’re going to be a back-up sooner or later.

“If you’ve got a game once every three weeks, you’ve just got to show up. That’s something I had to figure out.”

Stephan’s first season in the AHL wasn’t the first time he’d ever been a back-up, but it was the first time it was true the entire season. In his first season in the Nationalliga A, the 2001-02 season with HC Chur (pronounced like Coors, only without the “s”), Stephan started out as the back-up but became the starter when Nando Wieser began suffering injury problems. Then only 17 years old, Stephan started 21 of 36 games for Chur and started 9 of 10 Playdown games in the post-season, although Chur was relegated from the Nationalliga A after promoting up from the Nationalliga B the season before.

Serving as a back-up for the bulk of a season was not the only thing new to Stephan in 2006-07, he also had less time to practice because of the long road trips in the AHL’s West Division.

“Our longest road trip in Switzerland was three hours, and we were all, ‘Oh my God, a three-hour bus ride!’” Stephan said of the travel with Kloten.

In Switzerland, Stephan was able to practice often and stay on top of his game because Kloten never had road trips as he now knows them in the AHL, because the Flyers could generally return to Kloten immediately after games on the road.

“That’s a hard thing to learn over here, playing without being prepared,” Stephan said. “I mean obviously you try to prepare as good as possible, but sometimes you just can’t, because you got six hours of sleep in the bus and you’ve got to play.

“I had to learn to play when being tired, or not feeling well, or having bus legs.”

Another one of the major adjustments Stephan had to make in 2006-07 was the difference in the styles of play from the Swiss Nationalliga A and the American Hockey League.

“In my league in Switzerland, there was a bigger rink, so the game wasn’t that fast up and down and stuff,” Stephan said. “Guys were deking and passing and here it’s just straight, straight hockey.”

Stephan also had to adjust to the depth of talent on AHL rosters compared to the Swiss Nationalliga A, because, as he said, “the difference between the first line and the fourth line in Switzerland is big from the level of players.”

“There’s great players and there’s not-that-good of players,” Stephan also said of the line depth in Switzerland. “Here [in the AHL], the teams have good players throughout, less skill disparity.”

In some regards, Stephan’s time in the AHL has been his first major challenge. His career in Switzerland came fairly easy. He played in the Kloten Flyers’ system from youth through juniors and made the Swiss national team for the 2001 World Under-18 Championships largely on talent alone. At that tournament, Stephan led Switzerland to a silver medal finish and was awarded as the top goaltender at the tournament. Stephan translated that into a contract with Chur and became the number one there by circumstance. It was all coming almost too easy.

“I had to learn that it’s not going on itself, that I have to work a lot, because at this time everything just went perfect,” Stephan said of how easily his early career fell into place. “I just got in the A team without any battles, I get the number one spot because the other guy got injured, played well, everything just went perfect, and I had to learn what it means to work and keep improving.”

Stephan also played for Team Switzerland at the 2002 World Junior Championships and the 2002 World Under-18 Championships before being drafted by the Dallas Stars in the second round of the 2002 NHL Entry Draft with the 34th overall pick. His career continued to develop smoothly when Kloten Flyers legendary netminder Reto Pavoni signed with HC Geneve-Servette prior to the 2002-03 season after 16 seasons with the Kloten, which opened the door for Stephan to sign with his hometown team and assume the number one spot almost by default. He also was the number one netminder for Team Switzerland at the 2003 World Junior Championships and the third-string goaltender for the Swiss senior national team at the 2003 World Championships.

The ease in which Stephan walked into the Nationalliga A is not an entirely uncommon story among talented young Swiss players in their late teens, and Stephan believes the ease with which players get into the wealthy Nationalliga A is one reason why few young Swiss players have left to play minor pro in North America to pursue playing in the NHL.

“I think it has to do with the whole system in Switzerland,” Stephan said of the lack of incentive for Swiss players to play minor pro in North America and sacrifice to make the NHL. “You play juniors and you get into A teams a little bit too easy, I think, because there’s only four imports, so there’s a lot of Swiss players, and if you’re a good player, you get into team without battling for it too hard, just by talent.”

To date, Montreal Canadiens defenseman Mark Streit has been the only Swiss skater to play a full NHL season, having played for Montreal since the 2005-06 season. Streit cracked the NHL at age 28 after being drafted by Montreal as an overager in the ninth round of the 2004 NHL Entry Draft.

Over ten years before Streit played for Montreal, goaltender Pauli Jaks became the first Swiss-born player to play in the NHL when he played one game for the Los Angeles Kings in 1994-95. A few years after Jaks played for the Kings, right winger Reto Von Arx became the first Swiss-born player to score a goal in the NHL when he scored two goals for the Chicago Blackhawks Oct. 7, 2000, in a 5-3 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets. Von Arx, however, spent most of the 2000-01 season with the Norfolk Admirals of the AHL and returned to Switzerland the next season, and that is generally how it’s gone for Swiss skaters.

Center Thomas Ziegler pulled the one-and-done after playing 5 games for the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2000-01 and most of the season with their AHL affiliate, the Springfield Falcons, before leaving Springfield early in 2001-02. Columbus Blue Jackets draft pick Raffaele Sannitz pulled a one-and-done after playing for the Syracuse Crunch in the AHL and the Dayton Bombers in the ECHL in 2004-05. Patrick Fischer also pulled the one-and-done with the Phoenix Coyotes in 2006-07, playing 27 games and scoring 4 goals and 6 assists, before leaving for Russia for the 2007-08 season and then returning to Switzerland shortly into the Russian Super League’s season.

Further tarnishing the image of Swiss skaters, for NHL purposes, is the fact that first round draft picks Michel Riesen (Edmonton, 1997) and Luca Cereda (Toronto, 1999) were busts. Riesen played three seasons with the Hamilton Bulldogs of the AHL but only played 12 games for Edmonton, all during the 2000-01 season, his last in North America. Cereda returned to Switzerland midway through his third season with the St. John’s Maple Leafs of the AHL and never played for Toronto during the regular season. And beyond all the above-mentioned Swiss players, are the nearly two dozen Swiss-born players drafted since Jaks was taken in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft by the Kings who never even came over to North America. The question many Swiss players might ask themselves is, “Why should I?”

“You’ve got a great league at home, you make good money, you don’t have any road trips: you have a perfect league,” Stephan said of the Nationalliga A. “It’s just a lot of guys don’t have the endurance and aren’t willing to play over here too long, because it’s not working out right away.”

Other Swiss prospects have given it a real shot, such as defensemen Timo Helbling (Nashville/Tampa Bay/Washington), Julian Vauclair (Ottawa), and Goran Bezina (Phoenix). Vauclair and Bezina both played in the AHL from 2001-02 through 2003-04, but Vauclair only played in one NHL game for Ottawa (in 2003-04) and Bezina only played in three games for Phoenix (in 2003-04), and both returned to Switzerland thereafter. Helbling, a sixth round pick of the Nashville Predators in the 1999 NHL Entry Draft, played in North America from 2001-02 through 2006-07 and played 9 games for Tampa Bay in 2005-06 and 2 games for the Washington Capitals in 2006-07, but he returned to Switzerland for the 2007-08 season. None of these three, despite their efforts, truly cracked the NHL.

Swiss AHLers besides Stephan that are attempting to crack the NHL this season are Quad City Flames defenseman Tim Ramholt, who is in his second AHL season, and rookie Manitoba Moose winger Juraj Simek, a Slovakian-born player who grew up in Switzerland and who has played for the Swiss junior national team and who was drafted by the Vancouver Canucks in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft. Ramholt played a game for Calgary earlier this season and seems to be on his way toward becoming a fourth or fifth defenseman for the Flames and Simek seems to have the battle many Swiss forwards have lacked in North America and is a legitimate Canucks prospect. Time will tell, though, whether Ramholt and Simek join Streit as NHL regulars in the future.

One area where Switzerland has had some success in producing NHLers, though, is in net. Stephan is only one of the latest in a trend of Swiss netminders playing in the NHL. Jaks had his one game in 1994-95, but the procession started in earnest when David Aebischer became Patrick Roy’s back-up in Colorado in 2000-01. Aebischer’s chance in the NHL came after a season in the ECHL and two seasons in the AHL with Hershey Bears, proving he did have the determination to make the NHL after a point where, historically, many Swiss players would have given up and gone home. Aebischer has since played 214 NHL games over seven seasons between Colorado, Montreal, and Phoenix before the Coyotes loaned him to HC Lugano on Nov. 24 for the remainder of the 2007-08 season. Over the course of his NHL career, Aebischer has a .912 save percentage and a 2.52 goals-against average, and it’s possible the 30-year-old netminders’ career in the NHL is not finished.

Martin Gerber followed when he established himself as Anaheim’s back-up behind Jean-Sebastian Giguere in 2002-03 and made it to the Stanley Cup Finals, only for Anaheim to lose to New Jersey. Gerber was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes following the 2003-04 season and after the lockout became the Hurricanes’ starting netminder, until rookie Cam Ward took the reins from him and helped lead Carolina to the 2006 Stanley Cup and won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Stanley Cup Playoffs MVP. Now 33 years old, Gerber has played the past two seasons with the Ottawa Senators and battled Ray Emery for the number one spot. Even though Gerber has not established himself as an undisputed number one in the NHL, Gerber has firmly established himself as NHL-worthy with a save percentage consistently over or around .910.

The latest Swiss netminder to make the NHL is Jonas Hiller, who became Anaheim’s back-up this season after his performance with the Ducks and the Portland Pirates of the AHL early in the season allowed the Ducks to waive Ilya Bryzgalov and give the Russian a chance elsewhere, which came with the Phoenix Coyotes. The 26-year-old Hiller has put up impressive numbers in 2007-08 as Jean-Sebastian Giguere’s back-up and looks set to play in the NHL for the foreseeable future.

And next in line for both Dallas and for Swiss netminders in the NHL full time appears to be Stephan, who has established himself as Iowa’s starting netminder in 2007-08 and who has acquitted himself well in his limited NHL action with the Stars. If he can put up the numbers of Aebischer, Gerber, or Hiller, he should do just fine with Dallas.

Stephan signed a one-year contract extension with Dallas March 12, 2008, that will pay him $485,000 if he’s in the NHL full-time in 2008-09 and $100,000 if he’s in the AHL again. That salary hints that he may be the third-string again for Dallas next season, but it’s also quite possible he’ll become Turco’s bargain back-up in 2008-09 and that his willingness to pay his dues in the AHL and sacrifice pay he might receive in Switzerland will be rewarded sooner rather than later.

Regardless, he’s next in line.

Kevin Wey is a correspondent with McKeen’s Hockey that scouts/covers that American Hockey League and the United States Hockey League.