It's becoming part of the Calgary Flames' training-camp routine.Like fitness testing and exhibition matches, you can count on head coach Brent Sutter giving Curtis Glencross(notes) a public paddling every fall.
Mark it on your calendar.
A year ago, after a curious pre-season performance by Glencross in Saskatoon, the head coach had groused: "When we went to Saskatchewan, Glennie took the Saskatchewan River and he stayed on it for the game."
And just the other morning?
"With Glennie … we don't want a player who's outstanding one night and the next game he's not playing at the level we need him at," Sutter fumed. "I hope he's figured it out, because there are certainly things that were addressed last year at different times with his level of play.
"We need him at a standard that's acceptable.''
The first example, the river-hockey allusion, had been relatively light-hearted - but with a point. The most recent knock, however, was sterner stuff, spiced by impatience.
Glencross insists the consistency-is-king message is indeed getting through to him.
"It's game to game," says the swift left-winger. "The margin (between) real good and your bad stuff … you want to be here."
Here signifying a dependable rate of play nightly.
To illustrate, Glencross swings his left arm at chest height, keeping it steady - not up and down.
"You don't have to be great every game," he says. "You have to be more on a level pace. That's something in my game I'm working on. And I've talked to the coaching staff about it."
Operating on all four lines last winter, Glencross showed flashes of brilliance.
There was the night, while killing a penalty, he lost a defensive-zone draw and blitzed the point. There in a blink, he stripped Ilya Kovalchuk(notes) of the puck and finished the sequence by converting the breakaway. It stands as one of the season's home-ice highlights.
And against the Carolina Hurricanes on Feb. 3, he funnelled in three goals - in barely 13 minutes of ice time - for his first hat trick in the National Hockey League.
But on some other nights? He was a swirling non-factor.
"Most of it is mental, and you have to learn how to get through that," says Glencross.
"Every year, it gets a little better, right?'' says Glencross, who so far this camp has skated with David Moss(notes) and Alex Kotalik.
''You know more, you feel more confident. You know you've played hockey for 25 years, now, so you know what you're doing out there - it's matter of getting it in your head and going and doing it.
"Everyone goes through it. Even the best players in the world … they'll get in a slump and start thinking different, gripping their stick and (tinkering) with their sticks and thinking it's something little, right?"
Even with his roller-coaster season - sitting out 12 dates because of season-ending knee issues, sitting out three dates because of suspension (for conking an unsuspecting and puck-less Chris Drury(notes)) - Glencross still scared up 15 goals, still accumulated 33 points, still finished plus-11. (Only Mark Giordano(notes), at plus-17, had a better rating on the Flames.)
"Oh, it was going all right for me," Glencross says of his 2009-10 campaign. "I missed games with injury, which kind of puts a damper on things. But I was definitely on pace for the goals I set and I definitely want to meet them goals this year."
In the past three seasons, he's collected goal totals of 15, 13, 15.
Which means, high on his wish list, is … .
"Being a 20-goal guy. And a plus-player."
But Glencross is an intriguing case.
Judging by January's skills competition at the Pengrowth Saddledome, he owns the team's second-hardest shot. (He shattered the 100-m.p.h. plateau, finishing behind only Jarome Iginla(notes).) And according past talent shows, he's one of the fastest skaters in the NHL.
So what offensive targets should he be chasing?
Maybe more than 20 tallies?
"You want to meet one goal at a time, right?," says Glencross, 27, whose next point will be his 100th. "Build one goal this year. If you meet that, build another goal for next year. You want to push yourself every year."
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