Leadership Lessons from Toronto Maple Leafs' Goalie Ilya Samsonov
Full disclosure: I am a goalie Momma. My 12-year-old daughter plays on a provincial-level team, and I have recently learned the intense pressure a goalie deals with. This daughter is also an avid NHL hockey fan, with the Leafs being her number one team. She has succeeded in doing what no man before her in our family has ever done…got me to be a regular viewer of Leafs games! She comes from a long line of hockey-obsessed relatives from Great-Grandfathers, Grandfathers, her Dad when he was alive, Uncles, Cousins, and even my Mom!
And because of her interest in hockey and particularly in goalies, I have had the opportunity to watch the drama with Toronto Maple Leafs Goalie Ilya Samsonov go down.
For those non-hockey viewers, let me quickly get you up to speed. Samsonov (or as we affectionally call Sammie at our house) was the Leafs’ number-one goalie for a while. He was performing well and helping make some big saves that were invaluable to the team.
Then he stopped making some of those important saves. He got into his head about it and his performance began to spiral. All while being watched by millions of people. His performance was highly criticized on social media and in sports media.
Eventually, he was taken out of the NHL and put down to the Leafs farm team. This would have been a massive hit to the ego. Leaf fans were expecting that was likely the last time they heard of Sammie.
But it wasn’t. The Leafs’ goaltending still wasn’t what they wanted even after Samsonov left so in a fateful move, Samsonov was brought back onto the Leafs roster. He played a great game. And then he went out the night after that and played another good game, and so on.
Now, I am not sure if Samsonov will continue to be the Leafs’ number one goalie and the hero they need. (Side note, my daughter is a big Joseph Woll fan which makes me one too, and he has just returned to the Leafs’ net since an injury last Fall…but I digress). But there are some strong leadership lessons we can all learn from Ilya.
Leadership Lessons:
Don’t give up. If you have passion and a desire to pursue a path, keep going even when it seems like there is no way to achieve your goal.
Put your ego aside. We all have egos. That is part of being human. Yet, when we can realize where our egos are getting in our way and be able to set them aside to allow ourselves to learn more and be a better version of ourselves, there is profound learning here.
Try not to worry about what other people say. The higher you climb, the more people are going to want to weigh in on what they think about you. It may not always be nice. Remember, when people say mean things, it is more about them feeling lack and insecurities in their own lives.
Visualize success. There is intense power in visualization. Our minds can either sabotage us or help guide us to success. Sammie likely was focusing heavily on the pressure of feeling the failure of all of those goals going in and that focus was making more goals go in. No doubt, he had to shift his mindset to focus on the possibilities of the saves and the confidence around that.
Fake it until you make it. In the first game back for the Leafs that Samsonov played, you could tell he was nervous. His movements seemed frantic. But he leaned into his new mindset and went for it. I am sure it didn’t come easily to him but he put himself out there. The more he did this, the more confident he became, and eventually returned to being a lot more relaxed.
Count on your team. Hockey is not a one-person sport. If a goal goes in, it has to make it past everyone on the ice before it gets to the goalie. The goalie needs to make the save, but they need to have a strong team, too. Ilya had mentioned in some of his TV interviews that some of the support of his teammates, even when he went down to the Marlie’s farm team, meant the world to him. They still showed they cared and were rallying for him.
Focus on the moment. I am a big believer in the practice of mindfulness. Ilya needed to focus on each moment he was in on the ice. He can’t worry about all the stuff in the past nor can he concern himself about the future, he needs to stay in the moment and do the best he can here.
Respect. This last lesson comes from my goalie daughter. We were recently watching a Leafs game and a goal went into the net. I thought I would use this as a teaching moment and ask her what Samsonov could have done to stop that goal. She turned to me and said, “I don’t think I am in any position to critique Ilya Samsonov.” Her comment didn’t come from a place of lack of confidence in her knowledge as a goalie but in her respect for the long journey and tonnes of practice that went into making Ilya a professional goalie. And her understanding that it is easy to point fingers and say what someone did wrong, but it takes stronger leadership skills to be empathetic while also to keep learning and helping others around you learn, too. So what I thought was going to be a teaching moment for my daughter was a learning moment for me.
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