Mike McIvor has proven he is a playoff performer.
The 18-year-old goalie surprised the hockey world by seamlessly replacing all-star netminder Dom Vincentiis with an impressive 10-5 playoff record with a stingy 2.68 goals-against average and a solid .914 save percentage as the North Bay Battalion battled back from a 3-0 deficit to Oshawa to fall in 7 games in the Eastern Conference finals last spring.
McIvor was forced into duty when the Jets prospect suffered a season-ending injury in game two of the opening round of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals against the Kingston Frontenacs.
"So every time Dom was on the ice they knew he was going to perform," McIvor said on the Goalie Resiliency podcast hosted by Dr. Rob Graham and BayToday reporter Chris Dawson.
"So when he went down, I knew I had to prove myself right away and get the confidence of the team up. So I honestly felt a little switch in the confidence of the group during the last playoffs, when I started performing well."
McIvor had a season full of highs and lows. He started the year as the third-string goalie with the Battalion and was eventually sent to Powassan for a conditioning stint with the Voodoos before joining the Battalion again in November.
The lows were waiting to see where he fit prior to the Charlie Robertson trade. The highs indicated that he could be a clutch playoff goalie at the OHL level which he proved the year before leading the North Bay U18 AAA Trappers to a league title in the spring of 2023.
While his performance was timely with the NHL draft on the horizon this summer, McIvor felt another low when he was overlooked in his first year of eligibility for the NHL Entry Draft which took place in late June in Vegas.
"I know if Dom never got hurt, and I finished the regular season with my last game, I knew there wasn't really a shot," McIvor said about his chances of getting drafted.
"But after playoffs, just talking with Adam Dennis and (goalie coach) Maverick Parks, they let me know there's a shot. I played well enough to get drafted.
"So that felt pretty good. Then the summer rolls long. I'm still waiting for a couple of calls and I ended up getting a text from Montreal, to set up an interview.
"It went very well, and I was honestly expecting a little bit more, but I still have to prove myself.
"So the draft rolled around. I did watch it - I always watched like, OHL draft, NHL draft, just to see if my friends go, or see who my favourite team takes - so, hopefully Montreal was going to take me, but it didn't end up that way. I wasn't too upset or anything. And I know there are multiple ways to get the NHL, and that's the ultimate goal. I know it's a long road ahead to get to the NHL, so I'm just going to keep working."
Taming his athleticism
McIvor has been training hard this off-season and recently returned to North Bay in late July to train with Battalion goalie consultant Nate McDonald.
McDonald, who played NCAA Division I hockey at Cornell, believes McIvor to be one of the most athletic goalies he has ever seen. He believes the challenge is for McIvor to tame the athletic beast inside him.
"That is something that myself and our goalie coach Maverick Parks have been working with him on," McDonald said during a Goalie Resiliency podcast.
"We are trying to get him to dial that back a little bit because he is so athletic, and he's gotten away with it his entire career, because he's just a really great athlete. So that's the biggest piece. His tracking is on another level, the way he sees pucks all the way into his hands and into his body.
"If he doesn't have traffic. He's making the save, he tracks pucks phenomenally. So his tracking and his athleticism, or two of his biggest assets, and I think that's why he had such great success towards the second half of this past season."
McIvor, who has modelled his game after Jonathan Quick, believes the key now is to keep his athleticism in his back pocket for when he needs to make desperation saves.
"I think if you noticed me when I first started off at the beginning of the season, I was too athletic," admitted McIvor.
"I was like a fish out of water, always on my back and stuff like that. So just building on that was a process, and it took a while.
"It can be tough because you find with younger goalies maybe they're not competing enough, they don't have that athletic ability, but they're pretty calm. So, it was almost like a reverse, so I had to learn how to calm down, and just settle in my game."
What's next in 2024-25?
McIvor hopes to put all those lessons he learned in the 2023-24 season into good use this fall.
"I haven't really set too many goals with numbers or stats," admitted McIvor.
"I just want to start on time and really have a good start. I want to start hot and build off my playoff performance from last year.
"If we get a couple of good wins at the beginning of the year, who knows what's going to happen come playoffs? So that's my goal. Just stay consistent and I think I proved to myself and to others during that playoff run that I can dominate this league."
See the recent episode of Goalie Resiliency with Mike McIvor: