Gene Frenette: Icemen goaltender Matt Vernon, son of a Hall of Famer, carves his own hockey path

Jacksonville Icemen goalie Matt Vernon has little trouble identifying the pivotal moment in his hockey life.

He was 12 or 13, brooding in the car about just being cut from his Double-A bantam team, the Calgary Royals, as his future Hall of Fame goaltender father, Mike, sat in the driver’s seat.

The kid wanted an answer to a question that Mike, who played 19 NHL seasons and won two Stanley Cups and a Conn Smythe trophy, didn’t see coming. Still, he had no reservations about giving his son a dose of tough love.

“Dad, why did you never push me as a goalie,” the kid asked.

Matt can still recite his father’s answer like it was a few hours ago, with Dad saying: “That’s your job [to push yourself]. If you want me to help you out, I will.”

Over a decade later, the 25-year-old Icemen goaltender has gained a greater appreciation for his father’s wisdom. He allowed the oldest of his three sons to cultivate his own passion for the sport, rather than push him relentlessly so he could somehow relive his own hockey glory days.

“Matt knows me as his Dad, not the goalie,” Mike said on a recent visit to Vystar Memorial Arena, where he watched Matt compete for the first time as a pro goaltender. “I was out of the game when he was four or five-years-old.

“It wasn’t like he saw everything. I never dragged him to the [NHL] dressing rooms.”

So far, the son who has his father’s competitive streak and mother Jane’s intellectual aptitude, is doing a pretty good job of living out his own hockey dream.

Going into a Friday night road game against the Orlando Solar Bears, the Icemen goalie that got cut from his bantam team and went undrafted is leading the ECHL with a 2.22 goals against average and a league-best record of 19-4-1.

Inheriting father’s work ethic

Unlike his father, who gladly put the goalie pads on at age 4 and loved the idea of being the only player always on the ice, Matt became a netminder by default.

The Iceman goalie got “pressured into it” by friends that knew of Mike’s NHL career. He admittedly struggled to pick up the position’s nuances.

“I sucked at first, then I got okay, not even good,” Matt said after a recent 2-1 overtime victory over the Florida Everblades. “I just stuck with it, began to enjoy it even though I wasn’t very good.”

Getting rejected by his bantam team turned out to be a good thing because it drove Matt to become uber-focused on becoming a better goalie.

Mike recalls Matt being in the car and blaming genetics, specifically, his father being 5-foot-7, for getting cut because lack of height is a disadvantage for goaltenders.

Dad’s response: “You’re not going to make it with the name on your back, I’ll tell you that. You got to make your own way.”

From that point on, Matt found the inner motivation to gradually elevate his game. He started paying greater attention to details in one-on-one goalie sessions with tutors, emboldened as well by Jane’s encouragement.

While Mike served as an occasional assistant coach on some of Matt’s youth teams, he purposely refrained from being a driving force. Dad helped his son more with the mental side of being a goaltender, rather than being an overbearing hockey parent.

“One-hundred percent, that’s the reason I didn’t burn out on hockey like so many friends whose parents were hard on them, like [Dad’s] parents were hard on him,” said Matt. “It worked out in my Dad’s case, but most people I know whose parents pushed them a lot, they didn’t pan out.

“They got sick of hockey as they grew up and called it quits.”

Icemen coach Nick Luukko, who also grew up in a hockey family as his father, Peter, was former team president of the Philadelphia Flyers (1994-2013), has witnessed firsthand the work ethic of his rookie goaltender, who attributes that drive to Mike’s makeup.

“I think Matt’s pedigree is a big advantage for him because he’s got someone to run things off of,” said Luukko. “Whether it’s watching clips of games or just handling the adjustment of a pro schedule, it’s nice to have that buffer there, someone you can ask about [hockey] experiences and how they handled things.

“Matt is a top-notch competitor. He works extremely hard, never gives up on any puck.”

Son on different path

Matt might wear the same number 30 as his father did during 13 seasons with his hometown Calgary Flames, but their hockey journeys are quite different.

Mike, who was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto three months ago, never finished high school and was plying his goaltending trade in the Western Hockey League by age 18.

Despite allowing six goals in his NHL debut at age 19, Vernon became a force after being sent back to the WHL, twice earning league MVP honors. He finally became a permanent fixture with the Flames in the 1985-86 season, leading them to the Stanley Cup finals despite only 21 games of NHL experience.

By almost the same age son Matt is now (he turns 26 in March), Dad was hoisting a Stanley Cup after leading Calgary to their first NHL championship in 1989.

The Flames survived an overtime Game 7 in the first round against the Vancouver Canucks, where Mike made several stupendous saves in the extra period to keep his team alive. Calgary went on to beat the Montreal Canadiens and HOF goalie Patrick Roy to win the Cup.

In Mike’s career, which included earning the Conn Smythe trophy as the playoff MVP for the Detroit Red Wings in 1997, he retired with 385 regular-season wins (then 7^th all-time), 77 playoff victories (fifth all-time) and a 2.68 goals against average in the postseason.

“You got to make the timely saves in the pressure situations,” Mike said. “I thrived on that at a young age. Once it was playoff time, I learned to elevate my game. I thrived on the playoffs.”

Matt didn’t get the same high-level playing experience as his father after high school. He did earn a scholarship to Colorado College, having his best season while starting as a freshman. He struggled the following year, then served as a backup for the remainder of his college career.

Vernon signed with the ECHL Reading (Pa.) Royals after graduation and played just two games, but wanted a better playing opportunity. By chance, Luukko needed another goalie because longtime Icemen Charles Williams retired and the parent club Buffalo Sabres were assigning Jacksonville only one goaltender.

Luukko had a good relationship with Vernon’s agent, P.J. Sullivan of Lakonic Sports. The Icemen did their research and Williams, now the team’s goalie coach, recommended signing Vernon after watching his game tape.

So far, that transaction has paid enormous dividends for the Icemen, who are two points behind the first-place Greenville Swamp Rabbits in the ECHL South division.

With Luukko preferring to alternate goalies, Vernon has flourished in his first real opportunity as a pro. His .923 save percentage with the Iceman is Vernon’s best since he was a 20-year-old amateur with the Aberdeen Wings. His .812 win percentage is easily tops among ECHL goalies with a minimum 20 starts.

Though only 5-foot-10 (listed at 5-11), Matt must overcome a bit of a height disadvantage like his father, relying on quick reflexes and instinct as Icemen opponents have the least goals (127) among 28 ECHL teams.

“He’s a rookie, but he doesn’t play like a rookie,” Luukko said. “He’s got a swagger about himself. He’s confident in a good way, not an arrogant way.

“Going back to the size thing, I think everyone’s in love with the big goalie now. I think Vernie has proven that size doesn’t really matter. It’s to compete, and he competes night in and night out.”

Appreciating Dad’s legacy

Matt was too young to remember much about his father’s NHL career, but attending his HOF induction ceremony in November with his siblings (sister Amelia, brothers John and William) and Jane gave him a different perspective.

“It was incredible,” said Matt. “I haven’t had many opportunities to think about his career and how great he was until I got there. That was pretty much Christmas in November for me. I was grateful to the Icemen for letting me go.”

Mike Vernon played in an NHL golden age for goaltenders. Five of his fellow netminders – Grant Fuhr, Ed Belfour, Dominik Hasek, Tom Barrasso and Roy – combined to win 11 Cups and 13 Vezina trophies as the NHL’s top goalie. All are three to eight inches taller than Vernon and in the hockey Hall of Fame.

Rich Wamsley, a backup goalie with Calgary (1988-92), once described Mike Vernon as “inch for inch, pound for pound, the best small goalie to ever play in the National Hockey League.”

Matt Vernon is only three inches taller than his father and naturally aspires to play in the NHL, but feels no burden to follow in Dad’s footsteps.

“No, not at all,” said Matt. “I’m using [hockey] as a way to experience different things and places, have some fun. I talk to buddies back home [in Calgary] who are done with hockey and two or three years into their jobs, and they tell me: ‘Man, stick with it as long as you can because once you’re out, you can’t really come back.’

“I’d never consider my career unfulfilled if I didn’t get to the NHL. Coming to a place like Jacksonville and the crowds we get at games has been great. I got a free college education. Plus, so many memories from junior hockey. I’ll go as far as I can and enjoy the ride.”

It’s not a total long shot for the undrafted and smaller Vernon to make the NHL. The ECHL had 72 former players on NHL rosters to open this season.

Over 700 players since the ECHL’s inception in 1989 have reached the NHL, including New York Rangers goalie and future Hall of Famer Jonathan Quick, as well as former Boston Bruins netminder and Conn Smythe winner Tim Thomas.

Whatever becomes of his son’s career, Mike admires the perseverance it took for Matt to get this far.

“I’m very proud of his accomplishments of going the college route and sticking it out,” said Mike. “He bounced through three different junior teams, got himself a scholarship. I enjoy just watching his progress. He’s a good and dedicated person. I’m proud of how he’s handled himself like a true pro all the way along.

“Matt took it upon himself to make himself better. It had nothing to do with me.”

Between the pipes, Mike Vernon became a Calgary legend, hoisted two Stanley Cups and reached the pinnacle of hockey as a Hall of Famer.

No matter where Matt’s career takes him, the son of a famous goaltender has already become a different kind of success story.

On his own terms, Matt Vernon has been good enough to let professional hockey take him for a fun adventure, no matter how long it lasts.

Gfrenette@jacksonville.com: (904) 359-4540; Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @genefrenette 

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This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Hockey Hall of Famer lets son, Icemen goalie Mike Vernon, blaze his own trail