While growing up in his hometown of Thunder Bay, Ontario, new Kraken goalie coach Colin Zulianello was “around education” every day. His mother was a French and Spanish teacher at the local high school.
“I did have my mom as my French teacher,” said Zulianello, laughing. “It was the lowest French grade of my life. She held me to a different standard, for sure, and we still joke about that today.”
Last week’s announcement that Zulianello moves up from AHL affiliate Coachella Valley to become the goalie coach on Lane Lambert’s staff is a testament to Zulianello developing his own high standards for his work with Seattle’s bevy of goaltenders during his three-year role in the southern California desert. He has expected full effort and attention from the likes of Joey Daccord and Nikke Kokko, the former rising beyond occasional American Hockey League call-up duty to become one of the NHL’s elite goaltenders and the latter a 2022 second-round Finnish-born draft choice who seized the starting goalie role with Coachella Valley this past season and was named to the 2024-25 AHL All-Rookie Team. Both goaltenders are clearly and resoundingly better for playing a full season and playoff run under Zulianello’s direction.
“Joey and I grew personally in that first Firebirds season [2022-23], both taking a step, he as a goaltender and me as a coach,” said Zuilanello Monday morning. “We fell one goal shy [in Game 7 overtime] of the ultimate goal [winning the AHL Calder Cup]. He is such a pro, how he prepares his body and game plan, on and off the ice.”
When Kraken veteran Philipp Grubauer was assigned to the Firebirds for the purpose of gaining game action while the NHL was on Four Nations break, he praised Zulianello upon his return to Seattle in early March. The new Kraken goalie coach has equally glowing things to say about Grubauer: “I have a ton of respect for Grubi. It was not an easy situation for any pro, let alone a guy who's spent as much time in the NHL as he has. He came to Coachella Valley with zero ego and just wanted to work on his game. He became a leader and was great for Kokko and the entire team.”
Patience and Practice Pay Huge Dividends
Kokko’s “massive step” (Zulianello’s words) as a 20-year-old AHL rookie transforming into a clutch postseason performer started with his goalie coach game-planning lots of practice time and fewer games in the first two months of the Firebirds' regular season. The slow-play concept was to sharpen Kokko’s game while getting the Finn standout (Kokko led his top-tier Liiga team to the championship round as a 19-year-old) accustomed to the increased traffic net-front, which is a staple of play in the AHL and NHL. The plan worked to perfection and was a significant part of Zulianello’s approach to all goalies in his charge, from those in his town’s local youth association to juniors and Canadian college teams, as well as the ECHL, AHL, and now the NHL.
“I'm a firm believer that you do play the way that you practice,” said Zulianello. “We strive to achieve great practice details. We use our time before practice to determine the day’s theme – what we all believe we need to do to get better. It breeds confidence and spills over into your game performance. My mindset is to treat practices like games as much as we can. I work with goaltenders in practice and video sessions on the process of reading plays and shots unfolding on the ice. With this approach, making the save is basically the easiest part of that whole sequence.”
Seattle Beckons for Family – But Not So Fast
When Zulianello learned he was hired to his first NHL goalie coaching job after six years in the AHL and another eight at lower levels including the USHL, he and his wife, Lindsay, called their respective parents with the life-changing news, then found the right time to sit down with their three sons, ages eight and six (the younger two are twins).
“We didn't tell the boys right away because when we did tell them, their response was they thought we were leaving the next day,” said Zulianello, laughing gently again. “They were saying, ‘We're going to Seattle, we're going tomorrow?!’ Their concept of time is a little skewed.”
From there, Zulianello waited for the news to be official before connecting with “a lot of people that have been a huge part of my journey, trying to call them first [before news spread] to thank them, including coaches and goalie coaches and organizations I've worked for.” That Zulianello praised every member of the Coachella Valley coaching staff and hockey operations group and other Firebird staffers, plus the local community and schools, is a telling indicator of the human being the Kraken has hired. Building relationships is a huge part of coaching goaltenders to success on the ice.
Beyond Those French Lessons
Along with his mother’s inspiration and hard grading, Zulianello brings an even deeper educational perspective to his first NHL gig. He was a star in U18 hockey and earned an NCAA Division I scholarship with Colorado College, posting a 9-7-1 record with a .918 save percentage as a senior in 2000-01 while pursuing his undergraduate degree. He played four seasons in the ECHL, appearing in games for seven different franchises while also getting called up to play four games for AHL Springfield.
When a chronic groin injury disrupted Zulianello’s playing career arc, the new Kraken coach pursued his master’s in education back home at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay while concurrently coaching young goalies in the juniors system. He subsequently started his own summer goalie camps and clinics. Over the years between his playing career and accepting the Firebirds role beginning with the 2022-23 season, Zulianello juggled teaching roles in Thunder Bay senior elementary schools and part-time coaching opportunities. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the developmental goaltending coach for the Calgary Flames and their then-AHL affiliate, the Stockton Heat (now the Calgary Wranglers).
“I started to see a potential path of coaching and teaching,” said Zulianello. “At first, I wasn’t sure exactly where it would take me, but I knew I loved working with people and helping them understand things better, for them to learn a skill set. It started to click at the end of my playing career that there was something else out here I could do.”
“With everything Colin accomplished in Coachella Valley, plus his past history in terms of being a teacher, he’s a very well-rounded individual,” said Lambert. “When looking for our assistant coaches, Jason [Botterill, GM] and I put a real emphasis on coaches who are adept at teaching and developing players to mix in with veterans who have already had success. We certainly feel Colin’s relationship with our guys was going to be a really great fit moving forward.”
Part of the Job: Scouting the Opposing Goaltenders
Lambert emphasized Zulianello also impresses as a vital provider of up-to-date best ways to score against all NHL and AHL goaltenders playing for the league’s 31 Kraken foes: “The goaltending coach role has evolved,” said Lambert. “Colin can definitely help us with solving opposing goalies.”
For his part, Firebirds coach Derek Laxdal confirms Zulianello is a superb adapter of the added duties of scouting and presenting a report about opposing goalies before every game and that Zulianello “spent regular time and shared video with our forwards on how and where they can score on goalies.”
While the three Zulianello sons have to wait just a bit before moving to Seattle this summer, Dad is already hard at work researching opposing goalies and reviewing the video on all Seattle organization goaltenders as well. His screen time is way up over the past two weeks.
“With video more prevalent and accessible, goalie coaches use it more not only with our own goaltenders, but to identify tendencies and patterns and ways to score on the opposing team's goalies,” said Zulianello. “You learn how other teams attack off the rush and what they are looking to do with offensive-zone possession [among other gleanings]. Same for the power play and penalty kill. A goalie coach these days learns so much about the way teams play [on offense], especially how various NHL teams are successful against an opposing goalie. Learning the tendencies of other teams and goaltenders is, in turn, valuable to the rest of the coaching staff for a number of added reasons, including knowing how other teams are trying to score on our goaltenders.”
