Herringer Rises to the Occasion to Fill Void in Rockets’ Lineup
by Sam Hill

Michael Herringer is not your average goaltender. Born in Haiti, Herringer was adopted by a great family in Comox , B.C. at just 14 months old. While Herringer grew up with an extremely supportive and loving family, they were not completely on board with his dream to play hockey.

After years of pestering his parents to let him play, Herringer stepped into the game at 10 years old. He started out his hockey career on a house league team, and just four weeks in was called up to play backup for a rep team. Soon after that, when the team’s starting goaltender moved, Herringer was awarded the starting position, in his very first year of hockey.

A recurring theme for Michael Herringer has been entering each season with low expectations of what his role on the team would be, and then being asked to step up and perform in a leading role.

His WHL career began with the Victoria Royals in 2013, but Herringer was not awarded much playing time during his stint with the Royals. In 2014, he was traded to the Saskatoon Blades, and at this point, Herringer was unsure that he wanted to continue playing hockey at all.

“I ended up quitting,” explained the 20 year-old netminder. “I left Saskatoon a week after getting there. There were like five goalies on the team, they did not have their mind made up, and I wasn’t going to just sit around - I was contemplating just not playing hockey anymore.”

Luckily for Herringer, the Kelowna Rockets, a team that has a track record for creating depth in their goaltending pairs, had acquired his rights from the Blades and wanted him to join them on their way to Portland.

Herringer ended up spending the entire 2014-2015 season with Kelowna, in a rotation with starting goaltender Jackson Whistle, and rookie Jake Morrissey. He played 14 games for the Rockets during that season, and posted a 0.913 save percentage.

This season Herringer once again entered the season expecting to play backup to veteran Jackson Whistle, but when Whistle was sidelined for the second half of the season with serious hip injuries, Herringer took on the starting role, playing 44 regular season games with a 0.900 save percentage.

“I only packed for about two weeks in Kelowna, not expecting that I would be there for the full [2014-2015] season. Little did I know that I would play 19 games in a row this season,” said Herringer.

In the 2016 WHL playoffs Herringer has been heavily relied on by his team. With a talented, but young defensive core, Herringer has been depended upon to lead from the back end. While the first round saw a lack of consistency for the goaltender, Herringer was the Rockets’ shining star in the second round, against his former WHL team, the Victoria Royals.

Teammate and roommate Rourke Chartier spoke highly of Herringer’s performance so far in the 2016 WHL playoffs.

“He’s been great. It’s not an easy role to come into, especially with the pressure of playoffs. He’s been able to keep us in every game, and even steal a couple.”

When asked what Chartier thinks that Herringer’s biggest challenge has been he replied, “the workload is a lot bigger, and he’s worked at it and gets better by the game.”

Herringer has started every playoff game for the Rockets this postseason, and has faced far more shots and made more saves than any other goaltender in the league.

“I think that people have had low expectations for me, and that’s okay, because it gives me the room to far exceed those expectations.”