By Tracey Richardson

When wins are piling up and pucks are staying out of his net, the hockey world is Owen Sound Attack goalie Michael McNiven's oyster.

The 17-year-old rookie rocketed out of the gate this season, earning 10 wins and a couple of shutouts in his first dozen starts. By the time he was named to the CHL's Top Prospects game in January, NHL scouts had taken notice, ranking McNiven as the sixth best North American goalie for this summer's NHL entry draft.

And while McNiven says the Top Prospects game was an experience he'll never forget, he was disappointed by the four goals he allowed in a period and a half. In his two starts with the Attack since then, both of them losses, McNiven was in net for 13 goals against.

But the jumble of triumphs and setbacks are all part of a young goalie's development.

"Early in the season we were able to strategically pick some games that allowed him to have success, and he played well and performed well and he did a good job," said Attack coach Greg Ireland. "Now we're kind of giving him a little bit more of a workload, and I think there's some good things happening and then there's some struggles, which we would expect out of a 17-year-old goaltender."

At the start of the season, McNiven was mostly an unknown in the OHL, having spent last season with his hometown Georgetown Raiders junior team. In his first six weeks with the Attack this season, he was third on the team's depth chart behind Brandon Hope and Jack Flinn. By the time the Christmas season was over and McNiven had more ice under his belt, teams began to get the playbook on him.

"What's happened now is he's played a couple of good skilled teams," said Ireland. "I think his side-to-side movement needs some work, we see that he leaves his feet early, and some teams are seeing that and elevating the puck, so we have to get him to hold his feet a little bit more, work on quickness side to side, get a little more structure in his game, and take a step out into the white ice and away from the blue ice."

While he's constantly working on improving his technique, a short memory helps McNiven put the losses behind him.

"After the game for a half hour or whatever, you're kind of down, you're shrugging your shoulders, but after you leave that rink, it's a new day," he said. "So you go home and have a nice sleep and you wake up the next morning like a new person, and you just get focused again."

It's important for McNiven, and for his teammates, that he keeps his composure, he said.

"The whole team has to stay focused, but the goalie is a big part of the game, and obviously you want him to stay as focused as possible. They have to be one of the strongest players on the team with the mental part of the game," McNiven said. "My last two games (against Erie and Niagara) have been pretty bad for myself, and you just have to stay focused, whether the score is 10-nothing or a close 2-1 game."

If a puck gets behind him, McNiven's reset button is to pull off his mask and spray his face with water.

"I take my helmet off, give myself a little spray and try to wake myself up, and just revise the goal in my head a few times... After that next puck is dropped, you have to erase it out of your head and start the game over again like it's 0-0."

Confidence is one of McNiven's biggest assets, although it's also a delicate balancing act, according to Coach Ireland.

"Oh, he's confident. It's a good thing, and yet we talk to him all the time about humility and being humble. We play a team game," Ireland stressed. "It's never about one person. We win together, we lose together, we score together, we get scored on together. When there's a mistake made, we look at everybody on the ice. So we want him to take a step back and have a bit more humility, but we don't want him to lose that confident edge. There's something to be said for a goaltender to have that."

McNiven has regularly known success throughout his fledgling career, rising above setbacks time and again. He first strapped on the pads at the age of eight, and he took to it right away.

"There's a lot of pressure on you, so if you like pressure, or you're flexible, any reason towards goaltending, it might put you in that direction. I was pretty flexible when I was younger, and I was pretty good at being a goaltender, so I just kept with it and worked at it."

His father was a goalie, but never pressured him to play the position, said McNiven, who was the Attack's fourth round pick in the 2013 OHL entry draft—the third goalie selected overall. He didn't make the team as a 16-year-old. Instead he was sent back to Georgetown, where he logged nearly 50 games and carried his team into the playoffs.

That extra year made all the difference, McNiven said.

"I matured a lot. I'm more focused now. I guess every rookie does it, they get all wound up and excited, but I think I was probably a little too over the top with that, and I learned my lesson," he said. "I came more prepared this year and it's turned out to be good for me, and I'm going to keep doing the same thing over and over again until it gets to perfection."

McNiven sets goals for himself every season, and his ultimate goal is to make the NHL, where he looks up to L.A. Kings goalie Jonathan Quick and Montreal's Carey Price. He also looks up to former Attack goalie Jordan Binnington, who's in the St. Louis Blues organization and was called up for a couple of games this year.

Does McNiven have a legitimate shot at the bigs? Ireland thinks it's a possibility, but it's still early to say.

"Michael will have to come a long way to get there, but the fact that he's on the (NHL scouts') radar is going to give him shot number one on the ladder," said Ireland. "There's many steps on the ladder that he's going to have to go before he gets there. It's hard to tell young guys that. They think it's just transition-transition, and then they're in the NHL. Doesn't work that way."

Being heavily scouted this season isn't displacing the ice in McNiven's veins. He shakes it off, as he's done for a few years now.

"Whoever it is, someone's watching you," he said. "It doesn't really matter. It's been like this for three years now, even in minor midget when Owen Sound was looking at me. It doesn't really phase me. Back then I might have got excited because I was new to it, but it's par for the course now and I'm used to it."

Wherever his career takes him, for now McNiven is enjoying the atmosphere at the Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre and the Owen Sound community.

"Everyone knows who you are here, everyone wants to be your friend and be friendly, so that's always a good thing. And the fans here are so loyal to us. We love them and they love us. It's nice having that here. Not a lot of OHL organizations have fans like us, and that's pretty awesome."

Tracey Richardson is an Owen Sound freelance journalist and fiction writer. Twitter @trich7117.