Steve Briere is not a name that resonates loudly in the hockey world.

The 38-year-old former goalie from Winnipeg played in 10 leagues over the course of his career, which included two and a half seasons in Britain and two games in the AHL.

Upon retiring, Briere was mentored by Mitch Korn, then goalie coach of the Nashville Predators and Wayne Thomas of the San Jose Sharks. Briere coached young goalies, both in his camp, Canadian Professional Goalie Schools, and with teams like the Fargo Force of the USHL. Now Briere has made the NHL, replacing Rick St. Croix as the Leafs goalie coach.

The Star reached him for a Q and A. in Fargo, N.D., where he was holding a summer camp for goalies.

How did you link up with the Maple Leafs?

“I happened to coach a couple of NHL prospects this year. I spoke with (Leaf scout) Garth Malarchuk during the season. It turned out the majority of prospects they were looking at were all goalies I’d worked with. Then Garth asked me: ‘How do you have all these NHL prospects?’ And I explained the process of how I coach goaltenders. He said it was really good and I should talk to the Leafs about being the goalie coach. I passed my information on to Garth, he passed it on to Kyle (assistant GM Kyle Dubas).Then I met with Mike Babcock, interviewed with him in Toronto and the rest is history.”

Star: It’s like a dream job coming to you.

Briere: “There’s no doubt I’ve been working towards this since I retired from playing.”

Star: What is your philosophy of coaching goalies?

Briere: “I don’t necessarily think of it as a philosophy as much as I do a plan. You have to have a plan. That plan has to fit with each goaltender, the same way you’d build a business. You have to do your research, and analyze and come up with the best plan to move that company forward. That’s the same as I do with goalies. I spend a lot of time researching and a lot of time analyzing and a lot of time making sure when I present something with the goaltenders it’s not just on a whim. I’ve researched it. I’ve studied it.

“If a goaltender asks me why we’re doing this drill, I’ve got video examples to be able to show, statistical answers so they can truly believe in what we’re doing. If they believe in it and they perform it, they’ll work at it twice as hard if they believe.

Francois Allaire was deemed to be a rigid coach, forcing the goalies into the butterfly. Rick St. Croix was more flexible, coaching to the goalies strengths. Where are you on that pendulum?

Briere: “I call myself a situational goalie coach. Every situation has multiple way of stopping it. Each goaltender is going to have a different way of analyzing and processing that situation. They’re going to have different save selections.

“My theory is: What works for Reimer might not work for Bernier and what works for Bernier might not work for Reimer. So, I try not to change what they take their strengths, like Rick, but at the same time if it’s not working, we’re going to have to make some adjustments.

The first step is to try to take what they do and are already good at it and add repetition and perfect it. If they can’t perfect it, then we have to make changes and improve it.”

Star: Have you talked to the goalies?

Briere: ‘We’ve talked to both numerous times and we’ve talked about having a plan. They both enjoy the idea of having a plan for the season. The plan to me is the most important part. You’re going to have good games, bad games. If you have a plan, it’s easy to get back on track. You eliminate all the ups and downs.”

Star: Can you offer an idea of what you mean by your plan?

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Briere: “I would break it down into the parts of being a goaltender: flexibility, strength, movement, save selection, mental strengths, vision, communication, playing the puck.” Our goal is that every week we want to make sure we attack all of those parts.

“So on a daily basis we want to try to touch as many of those parts as possible. Throughout the week we want to make sure we have a cycle of having worked on all those things so that the guys are confident we’ve worked on all this.”

Star: There’s a buzz term that’s emerged in the goaltending community called “puck tracking.” Sounds to me like “keep your eye on the puck” but what does it mean to you? Is that something you preach?

Briere: “Yeah, I think most goalie coaches do that instinctively. The most common denominator is if you can’t see the puck you can’t stop the puck.

“So you have to track the puck. No matter how good you are, or how big you are, if you can’t see it, you can’t stop it. So I think we all work on it. It’s kind of the buzz: tracking and vision.

I’ve been working on vision-training programs and tracking-training programs with a company called McDonald Eye Care. I work with them on tracking and vision and work on strengthening their vision — their sports vision, not just their vision. Not reading 20-20 on a chart, but calculating depth perception, how fast can they do that? Seeing the puck side-to-side, top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top. All of those movements in the eyes can be trained and be worked on and can be strengthened.

“That’s what I’ve discovered. That will be a big element we will bring to the goaltenders this year for sure.”

Star: What do you see as the strength of Jonathan Bernier and James Reimer?

Briere: “I don’t want to get into what their strengths and weaknesses are. We’re still in the analysis part. But I spoke to them a lot. We’ve watched a ton of video. And we’re formulating our plan accordingly.

“They’re both great men, both great people and they have incredible work ethics. When you have good people and incredible work ethics, that’s a good start to a formula to be great.

“They’re willing to learn and to adapt and try new things. I think it’s going to be a wonderful year.”

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