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The Next BIG Thing
Article By Kevin Woodley
Images By Andy Mettler
From Goalie News
Volume 3, Edition 6
 Jean-Sebastien Giguere was about to go straight from Conn Smythe candidacy as playoff MVP and the Stanley Cup Finals to free agency.
Dominik Hasek and Ed Belfour, a pair of aging future first ballot Hall of Fame goalies coming off good seasons, were poised to join him, as was fast rising star Niklas
Backstrom, who finished the season in Minnesota near the top of most NHL statistical categories.
Rumors were also flying around the league about the availability of several top-flight, reasonably priced puck stoppers via trade, and the league’s annual Entry Draft
was less than a month away.
So why, as the calendar flipped from May to June, was Jonas Hiller suddenly the hottest puck-stopping commodity in the NHL?
Why were 16 teams lining up to start a bidding war for the services of an undrafted, largely unknown 25-year-old from Switzerland? How was a goalie whose team
finished eighth at the recent World Championships able to command one-way contract offers in the NHL? Why would Anaheim, the team Hiller finally settled on after
an agonizing week, be so keen to make a move that affects the future of the Ducks goalies on the eve of the Stanley Cup finals?
There are plenty of reasons for Hiller’s newfound
popularity.
For starters, he was the biggest reason an often overmatched
Swiss squad even made the playoff
round at the World Championships in Russia,
finishing the tournament with a 91.0 save
percentage. And it didn’t hurt that he did so starting
ahead of proven NHL goalie and countryman David
Aebischer, an ex-Colorado Avalanche’ and, most
recently, ex-Montreal Canadiens’ stopper who will
also be looking for a new team as an unrestricted
free agent this summer.
It certainly helped that Swede Johan Holmqvist used
a similarly solid showing at last year’s Worlds as a
springboard to a strong season in Tampa Bay,
joining Backstrom and Frederik Norrena on the
growing list of aging Euro goalies successfully
transitioning to the NHL. And the fact they’re doing
so at relatively inexpensive salaries, without costing
NHL teams a draft pick or five to six years of
development is also a nice bonus in the new, salary
capped world of the NHL.
But the bottom line on Hiller can’t be found in any
statistic sheets, comparisons or recent trends. The
bottom line is he can play.
“He's an unrestricted free agent and he's good,”
Team Canada and Edmonton Oilers goalie Dwayne
Roloson summed up perfectly.
Hiller is also a big goalie – both literally and
figuratively. He has plenty of experience on big
international stages like the World Championships,
and has proven he can win big games, including a
pair of Spengler Cups and Swiss National League
titles, the latest courtesy of a 1-0 Game 7 victory.
And he plays a lot bigger than his 6-foot-1 listing
indicates, filling up the net with a technically sound
butterfly that makes for obvious comparisons with
both Giguere and Vancouver Canucks star Roberto
Luongo.
“He's a big guy, who goes down in the butterfly like
Luongo and kind of covers up the whole net,”
Columbus Blue Jacket and Team Canada forward
Rick Nash said during the World Championships.
Nash would know. He played with Hiller at HC Davos
during the NHL lockout two years ago and came
away very impressed.
"When I was there in Switzerland, I was surprised
he wasn't already in North America," Nash, the
tournament MVP, told the Canadian Press. "There's
not many ways to beat him. He's one of the hardest
working goalies I've seen. It's pretty impressive, his
work ethic.”
Again, that sounds a lot like hard-working
descriptions that follow around Giguere and Luongo,
comparisons that aren’t surprising given Hiller’s
history as a student at Francois Allaire’s longrunning
summer schools back in Switzerland.
Neither then is his decision to join the Ducks, who
first started the trend of bringing over older
European goalies as backups when they drafted
another of Allaire’s aging Swiss students, Martin
Gerber, in the eighth round in 2001.
“It’s an advantage for both of us,” Allaire, who has
worked with Hiller in Switzerland for the last six
summers, said between Games 1 and 2 of the
Stanley Cup Finals. “Jonas got 16 proposals from
other teams in the NHL but he trusts me and he
trusts the way I coach and trusts my knowledge of
his talent. At the same time, for me, there will be a
part of teaching that won’t be necessary. He knows
already what I’m asking and the way I am asking.
We’re going to go quicker and faster than a guy who
is coming from another organization who has never
been involved with me. I really trust his talent.”
Hiller also cited his familiarity with the Ducks’
resident goalie guru as a big reason for choosing
Anaheim, but the reasons he was such a popular
free agent pursuit for the rest of the NHL can be
traced to the influx of import puck stoppers since
Anaheim’s last overseas experiment with an Allaire
student paid off so handsomely.
 Since Gerber, the Euro fad has continued Cristobal
Huet, a seventh-round pick of Los Angeles in 2001,
and Rangers star Henrik Lundqvist, a seventh-round
pick a year earlier. It picked up more steam when
Backstrom, Holmqvist and Norrenna – three goalies
with an average age of 30 and more than 30 years
of pro experience in Europe – all enjoyed immediate
success as rookies last year.
Back in Switzerland, it was being duly noted by Hiller.
“I recognize it for sure,” he said. “I see those guys
playing in Europe and having a lot of success over
there and yeah, that’s my goal to just follow those
guys, do the same, and hopefully get the chance and
it’s easier now. A few years ago everybody was just
looking for American goalies or Canadian goalies
and management and those guys see that
Europeans can play on the same level. It makes it
easier. To be the first Swiss guy would be tough.”
In addition to having big game experience, being
more affordable than many veteran North
Americans with similar pedigrees, and offering a
much more immediate fix than the draft, NHL
general managers have figured out that European
goalies have been playing a brand of hockey similar
to the new NHL. And after years of having to be
patient on their skates, read play that was more
east-to-west and wait out shooters with plenty of
time and space to pick corners, those goalies may
be better suited to the new NHL than many of their
North American counterparts who spent the prelockout
years playing more of a blocking style behind
the hook-and-hold rodeos being passed off as minor
pro hockey on this side of the Atlantic.
“In Europe you always have guys skating around and
making moves because they have more space and
with new rules you can’t interfere as much any more
and they have more space now too,” said Hiller,
echoing the sentiments of both Backstrom and
Norrena from the cover story in the March issue of
Goalie News (V3E3). Hiller is now the popular pick to
follow them as the next great import, although
seven years ago you would have had a tough time
convincing him.
“It was a dream to play in the best league in the
world – you always got to have that dream – but for
me it was pretty far away because I never played
junior national team or anything,” said Hiller.
Well down the list of Swiss goalies, Hiller wasn’t
even starting for the Davos Junior team and only got
one game in the National League (Nationalliga)
between 2000 and 2003. In 2003-04, he had a
3.55 goals-against average behind a Laussane
team relegated to the B League with Hiller in net.
Things turned around the next season.
Back with Davos and starting in a Swiss League that
was attracting top locked-out NHL players like Nash
and San Jose’s Joe Thornton, Hiller was named
Swiss goalie of the year – an award Huet captured
three times before coming to the NHL – while
winning the first of his two Nationalliga
Championships with HC Davos. From there came
appearances – and success – in higher-profile
events like the Spengler Cup and European
Champions Cup, a place on the Swiss squads at the
last two World Championships, and now the NHL.
“It was step by step,” said Hiller. “At first I was just
happy I can jump into the Swiss League and get a
chance and then I came up to national team and
played As a kid I always had that NHL dream but it
was so far away and I came closer and closer every
year.”
Hiller doesn’t think it’s a coincidence he started
taking those steps after first attending Allaire’s
summer camp seven years ago. While he still likes
to think of himself as more than just a blocker, Hiller
has come a long way technically since that first
session at age 19.
“Around 20, you can see a big difference,” said
Allaire. “He really developed around age 22 … He’s
a butterfly-type goaltender who plays a big game
with his body. His upper body is really big. On top of that, he’s a guy who wins over there. He’s got two
championships in the Swiss league and the Swiss
league is a really good level. He’s got two Spengler
Cup championships, too. We’re really thrilled to
have a guy with some winning experience behind
him.”
Hiller wasn’t totally without teaching before working
with Allaire – he had goalie coaches and Aebischer
had shared lessons on getting up with the proper
recovery leg and the concept of blocking – and he
describes his style as more similar to Luongo than
Giguere in terms of still using active hands on top of
a fundamental base.
“The basics are those side to side movements,
always be in the right spot in front of the shooter
and taking up the area,” he said, “But I’m also still
working a lot of my reflexes. It’s not just positioning,
I can also go for the puck and I can make saves with
the arms.”
In addition to that innate reactive ability, he has
quick feet, makes strong lateral pushes and reads
the play well, a combination that allows Hiller to
arrive early and square to save positions, which then
allows him to maintain superb rebound control on
body saves.
No wonder he’s ready for the NHL. Truth is, Hiller
thought he might have been ready last year, but the
combination of some restriction in the CBA and the
desire to play a lot kept him in Switzerland for a third
season. But he told Davos early on it would be his
last, and seems confident he’ll make his next step in
the NHL, even if the Ducks bring back both Giguere
and Ilya Bryzgalov (see sidebar).
“I’m not afraid to battle those guys,” said Hiller.
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