The easy thing to do in the case of Elvis Merzlikins would be to compare his recent run of success to what happened a season ago.
His 4.23 goals-against average and .876 save percentage during the 2022-23 season were career worsts, and those results compelled him to put in a long summer of hard work to not ever have to go through such an experience again.
Yet at the same time, as Merzlikins has racked up a .921 save percentage in his last nine appearances, he’s not focusing too much on what happened a year ago. The biggest key to his recent play is simply focusing on the present, staying in the moment, and making the next save – and then the next one after that as well.
“I’m not thinking about the future, and I completely do not care about the past, what happened,” he said recently. “And I still don't care what people are saying, what they're talking. That was my main problem last year, that I was maybe not focusing, but worrying about what others would think about me.
“And obviously the season was going bad for all of us, and even if I didn't want to hear some things, I was hearing them. This year, I had to work quite a bit with myself during the summer, and right now I don't care. I just want to play hockey, and I listen to what my wife and my little beautiful son say.”
Putting the blinders on and narrowing his focus has paid dividends, as Merzlikins has been one of the team’s best players during recent games. He’s faced at least 35 shots in six of his last nine appearances but has been able to withstand the heavy work, capped by his season-best 41-save performance Friday as the Blue Jackets beat Ottawa by a 4-2 score.
“He’s so talented,” head coach Pascal Vincent said after the game. “He’s a guy that’s intense. He’s emotionally involved in the game, and his hockey reads are really good. He competes hard. He's a real good goalie.
“I’m not an expert in goalies – that's why we have goalie coaches – but like I can see tonight, Elvis was calm, intense, but in control. That’s something we didn’t see much last year. It was like, more movement, more intensity, but not necessarily in control. What I've seen this year so far is he’s in control, but he kept the intensity.”
With the success, Merzlikins is looking like the goalie who took the NHL by storm during the 2019-20 season, posting a 2.35 GAA and .923 save percentage on the way to finishing fifth in both the Calder Trophy voting for rookie of the year as well as fifth in the Vezina voting for the league’s top goalie.
“It’s nothing new for me,” Merzlikins said of his play. “This is me. This is my hockey, how I’m playing, and I’m playing the right way right now, how I want it. … Right now, I’m just focusing day by day, working day by day, step by step, and I am taking it game by game. I’m not thinking about the future. I’m not thinking about anything else. I’m just starting to do my work, and my teammates are helping me, which is awesome.”
If there’s one thing that appears to be different on the surface of Merzlikins’ game, it’s in the calm, composed nature of his game. Merzlikins’ athleticism is one of his top qualities, but like any goalie, he’s at his best when he’s square to the shooter and letting the game come to him rather than chasing it and trying to put his own stamp on it.
Merzlikins credits his work in the summer for getting to that point, and he also seems to have meshed well with the team’s new goaltending coach, longtime NHL veteran Niklas Backstrom.
“He’s a great coach for me mentally,” Merzlikins said. “He understands the point of vision of how I see things and the goals, the plays, and everything else. He’s really helpful there. And mostly, I have freedom. I am more relaxed. I know where I feel bad, in what kind of situations of the game, so I can tell him and then we work on that, which for now seems to be working pretty good.”
While Merzlikins’ focus is not on what happened a season ago, that experience has helped lead to the goaltender putting together one of the best stretches of his career.
“I work every day,” Merzlikins said. “I am not going to stop because thinking about what was, last year was last year, but it wasn’t pretty. Like I said at the end of the year, I'm going to make myself suffer, and I did. And now I am just trying to do the best job I can do.”
